Bosnian Serb commander and war criminal Ratko Mladic dies in prison

Ratko Mladic, a former Bosnian Serb military leader and notorious figure of the 1992-95 Bosnian War, has passed away at the age of 84 in a United Nations detention center in The Hague. The general, infamously known as the "Butcher of Bosnia," had been serving a life sentence for his role in the genocide that occurred during the conflict. Mladic's death was confirmed by a UN official, who added that he had died in a prison hospital after experiencing multiple strokes.

In 2021, the United Nations tribunal in The Hague dismissed Mladic's appeal against his 2017 life sentence, which was handed down for his involvement in genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. The tribunal's decision came after Mladic spent a decade evading capture before being apprehended in 2011. The general was the military commander of a brutal trio, with political leaders ex-Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic and former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic at the helm.

It was under Mladic's command that the massacre of 8,000 men and boys at the UN-protected Srebrenica enclave took place, marking one of the darkest chapters in the Bosnian War and a horrific act of genocide.