Ex-Bosnian warlord who oversaw atrocities dies as a prisoner at 84

Ratko Mladic, the bullish Bosnian Serb general whose forces besieged the Bosnian capital for several years in the 1990s and carried out the worst massacre in Europe since World War II, died yesterday while serving a life sentence for his crimes, UN officials said. He was 84.

Mladic died at a hospital in The Hague, Netherlands, UN court officials said. A Mladic relative who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation confirmed the reports and said Mladic’s son, Darko Mladic, was on his way to the Dutch city.

The UN tribunal for war crimes committed during the wars in the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s sentenced Mladic to life in prison in 2017 in what was considered a key step toward bringing justice to the victims. He had been in custody since 2011 after many years on the run.