Ratko Mladic guilty: 'Butcher of Bosnia' convicted of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes

Ratko Mladic, the former Bosnian Serb military general known as the “Butcher of Bosnia”, has been found guilty of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes, and sentenced to life in prison.

Mladic was found guilty of commanding forces responsible for crimes which include the worst atrocities during Bosnia‘s devastating 1992-95 war: the deadly three-year siege of the Bosnian capital, Sarajevo, and the 1995 massacre of some 8,000 Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica – Europe’s worst mass killing since World War II.

The United Nations’ Yugoslav war crimes tribunal convicted the 74-year-old of 10 out of 11 charges. ​Mladic will appeal against his convictions, his defence lawyer has said.

Prosecutors had sought a life sentence, while Mladic’s defence lawyers said he should be acquitted on all counts.

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Presiding Judge Alphons Orie read out the judgement, after ordering Mladic out of the courtroom over an angry outburst.

“The crimes committed rank among the most heinous known to humankind, and include genocide and extermination as a crime against humanity,” the judge said while reading out a summary of the judgement.

The mothers of Srebrenica’s victims clapped when the convictions were read out. Mladic’s son, Darko, said: “I’m not surprised. The court was totally biased from the start.”

Despite his ailing health, Mladic looked relaxed, greeting lawyers and giving a thumbs-up to photographers in court. He nodded regularly as the judge read out descriptions of atrocities by Bosnian Serb forces, one by one.

When Mladic’s lawyer asked for a delay because the general was suffering high blood pressure, the judge refused, and Mladic burst out with criticism and was ordered to leave the room.

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Judge Orie said the court confirmed that “genocide, persecution, extermination, murder and the inhuman act of forcible transfer were committed in or around Srebrenica” in 1995.

However, Judge Orie said the court was “not convinced” of genocidal intent in six other municipalities, in line with previous judgments.

The long-awaited judgement marks the end of the final trial at the tribunal, which was set up in 1993 while fierce fighting was still raging in Bosnia.

Emotions ran high outside the courtroom, with a small skirmish reflecting lingering tensions between Serbs and Bosniaks over the trial and the war.

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Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, hailed the conviction as a “momentous victory for justice”.

“Mladic presided over some of the darkest crimes to occur in Europe since the Second World War, bringing terror, death and destruction to thousands of victims, and sorrow, tragedy and trauma to countless more,” he said.

“His conviction is a testament to the courage and determination of those victims and witnesses who never gave up hope that they would see him brought to justice.”

He added: “Today’s verdict is a warning to the perpetrators of such crimes that they will not escape justice, no matter how powerful they may be nor how long it may take. They will be held accountable.”

Aleksandar Vucic, President of Serbia, said Serbia “respects the victims” and called for a focus on the future.

“I would like to call on everyone [in the region] to start looking into the future and not to drown in tears of the past... We need to look to the future... so we finally have a stable country,” Mr Vucic said.

Serbia, once the most powerful Yugoslav republic, is now democratic and seeking ties to the European Union.

Denis Zvizdic, the Prime Minister of Bosnia, said he hoped “those who still call for new divisions and conflicts will carefully read the verdict rendered today... in case that they are still no ready to face their past”.

His comments alluded to enduring separatism in post-war federal Bosnia’s autonomous Serb region.

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Boris Johnson, the Foreign Secretary, said the decision showed that “however hard they might try, those who perpetrate atrocities cannot outrun justice”.

He added: “Ratko Mladic’s conviction for genocide in Srebrenica will not bring back the thousands who lost their lives, but it does demonstrate that the architects of their suffering will be held to account.

“The atrocities perpetrated in the Balkans in the 1990s marked one of Europe’s darkest periods. We must join together to ensure it never happens again.”

Lord Ashdown, who was the international community’s high representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina from 2002 to 2006, welcomed the conviction.

The former Liberal Democrat leader said: “The murderer of Srebrenica has been brought to justice. Those who value the rule of law in war will welcome this. Those who bled in the Bosnian wars have retribution.

“Those in Bosnia who understand there is no peace without justice can now look more confidently to the future.”

Fikret Alic, who became a symbol of the horrors in Bosnia when his skeletal frame behind barbed wire in a Bosnian Serb camp was featured on the front page of Time magazine in 1992, said: “Justice has won, and the war criminal has been convicted.”

The conflict in the former Yugoslavia erupted after the breakup of the former multi-ethnic federation in the early 1990s, with the worst crimes taking place in Bosnia.

More than 100,000 people died and millions lost their homes, before a peace agreement was signed in 1995.

Mladic went into hiding for around ten years, before his arrest in Serbia in May 2011.

His political senior during the war, former Bosnian Serb president Radovan Karadzic, was convicted last year for masterminding atrocities in Bosnia and sentenced to 40 years. He has appealed against the ruling.

The man widely blamed for fomenting wars across the Balkans, former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, died in his UN cell in 2006 before tribunal judges could reach verdicts in his trial.

Additional reporting by agencies