Ratko Mladić Dies at 84 in UN Custody

Ratko Mladić, the Bosnian Serb military commander convicted of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity, has died aged 84 in the United Nations detention facility at The Hague.

He had been receiving palliative care in the facility's hospital. The UN court confirmed the death on Thursday, said Dutch authorities have opened an investigation, and added that its most senior judge has ordered a full inquiry into the circumstances.

The case

Mladić commanded Bosnian Serb forces during the 1992-95 wars in the former Yugoslavia. He was sentenced to life imprisonment in 2017, with the conviction upheld on appeal by the UN court in 2021.

After the war he evaded capture for 16 years before being found in rural Serbia in 2011 and transferred to the Netherlands for trial. In May, the court rejected an application for his release as he neared the end of his life; the judge accepted his condition was "dire" but found he was receiving "comprehensive and compassionate treatment." His lawyers said he had been bedbound or in a wheelchair for a long period.

What the death closes, and what it does not

For survivors and the families of the more than 8,000 men and boys killed at Srebrenica, the conviction was the point, and it stands. Mladić died a convicted génocidaire, which is not true of every commander of that war.

What his death removes is any remaining prospect of further testimony, and it arrives amid a broader erosion — genocide denial has become more openly expressed in parts of the region than at any time since the verdict.