Ex-Bosnia Serb Commander Ratko Mladic Found Guilty in Srebrenica Massacre

Rasa - Ratko Mladic, the former leader of Bosnian Serbs and a military commander was sentenced to life in prison after the UN war crimes tribunal found him guilty of the involvement in the Srebrenica massacre and committing crimes against humanity.

News ID: 434929

Date: 23 November 2017 - 21:34

RNA - On Wednesday, the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia announced its verdict in the trial of former Bosnian Serb army chief Ratko Mladic. He has been charged with having committed genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity during the 1992-1995 war in Bosnia. Mladic denied all accusations, Sputnik reported.

A three-judge panel at the court formally known as the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia found Mladic guilty of commanding forces responsible for crimes including the worst atrocities of the war – the deadly three-year siege of the Bosnian capital, Sarajevo, and the 1995 massacre of some 8,000 Muslim men and boys in the Eastern enclave of Srebrenica, which was Europe's worst mass killing since World War II.

"For having committed these crimes, the chamber sentences Ratko Mladic to life imprisonment," judge Alphons Orie told the Yugoslav war crimes court after finding Mladic guilty on 10 of 11 counts, including genocide for "heinous crimes against humankind."

The trial in Mladic's case began on May 12, 2012, following his arrest by the Serbian authorities in 2011; the former military official had been fleeing justice for years.

In December 2016, prosecutors demand a life sentence for Mladic for the alleged killing of 8,000 Muslim men and boys during the Srebrenica Massacre in July 1995, as well as the protracted siege and bombardment of the Bosnian capital Sarajevo and the "ethnic cleansing" of Muslims and Croats in other areas.

Mladic's defense lawyers, for their part, insisted that Mladic did not order the Srebrenica killings, claiming that the trial has repeatedly been biased.

In March 2017, the lawyers called for provisional release of Mladic, who they claimed was not getting relevant medical treatment at the UN detention center in The Hague. The requests were rejected by the judges in May.

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