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Butcher of Bosnia Ratko Mladic, the former Bosnian Serb commander, has been convicted

Wednesday 22 November 2017

Butcher of Bosnia Ratko Mladic, the former Bosnian Serb commander   has been sentenced to life imprisonment after being convicted of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity.

More than 20 years after the Srebrenica massacre, Mladic was found guilty at the United Nations-backed international criminal tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague of 10 offences involving extermination, murder and persecution of civilian populations.

The trial in The Hague, took 530 days across more than four years, is arguably the most significant war crimes case in Europe since the Nuremberg trials, in part because of the scale of the atrocities involved. Almost 600 people gave evidence for the prosecution and defence, including survivors of the conflict.Presiding judge Mr. Alphons Orie said : 'The crimes committed rank among the most heinous to mankind.'

Mladic was found guilty of the three year seige of the Bosnian capital Sarajevo and the 1995 massacre of 10,000 Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica - Europe's worst mass killing since World War 2.

Lord Paddy Ashdown, former International High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovnia said : 'The murderer of Srebrenica has been brought to justice.'