Ratko Mladic, the Bosnian Serb general known as the “Butcher of Bosnia” for his role in the Srebrenica massacre, has died aged 83. He was held responsible for the killing of around 8,000 Muslim men and boys. The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) convicted Mladic of crimes it labelled as some of the "most heinous" in human history.
He was charged with genocide and sentenced to life in prison in 2017. The massacres took place in July 1995 when Mladic’s troops rounded up thousands of unarmed Muslim men and boys in the town of Srebrenica, lined them up while tying their hands behind their backs and shot them. Women and girls were systematically raped.
Remains of the deceased were then bulldozed into mass graves, which were later dug up and hauled away in order to hide the extent of the killings. Earlier this year, his attorneys requested his release on humanitarian grounds as his defence teams said he was in a state of “advanced, irreversible medical decline”. More to follow on this breaking news story...
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