Bosnian Serb convicted war criminal Ratko Mladic dies

⁠Former Bosnian Serb general Ratko Mladic, ⁠who was ⁠serving a life sentence for ‌genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity during the bloody 1992-1995 war in Bosnia and Herzegovina, has ⁠died.

Mladic, the so-called “butcher of Bosnia” died at the age of 84, the Serbian state RTS television and the official Bosnian Serb television reported. His death was also confirmed by a United Nations official, speaking to the Reuters news agency.

The reports said that Mladic died in a UN prison hospital in The Hague, Netherlands.

A family member of Mladic confirmed the reports and told The Associated Press that Mladic’s son, Darko Mladic, was on his way to The Hague.

Mladic was convicted of genocide for orchestrating the 1995 massacre of at least ‌8,000 Bosniak (Bosnian Muslim) boys and men in a UN-designated “safe area” of Bosnia, in Europe’s worst atrocity since World War II.

He spent his last years in jail after he was convicted in 2017 for crimes the tribunal said at the time were “amongst the most heinous known to humankind”.

Former UN rights chief Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein described him as “the epitome of evil” after his conviction.

The former communist officer-turned nationalist warlord was one of the most notorious figures of the conflict in which more than 100,000 people were killed and more than two million were driven from their homes.