Ratko Mladić

Ratko Mladić was born on 12 March 1942 in Božanovići, a village near Kalinovik in present-day Bosnia and Herzegovina. At the time the area was part of the Independent State of Croatia, a fascist puppet state led by the Croatian Ustaše and installed by Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy.

His father, Neđa Mladić (1909 to 1945), was a member of the Yugoslav Partisans. He was killed in action in 1945, on Ratko's third birthday, while leading a Partisan attack on the home village of Ustaše leader Ante Pavelić. His mother, Stana (née Lalović, 1919 to 2003), raised her three children alone: daughter Milica (born 1940) and sons Ratko and Milivoje (1944 to 2001).

After finishing elementary school, Mladić worked in Sarajevo as a whitesmith for the PRETIS company.

In 1961 Mladić entered the Military Industry School in Zemun, near Belgrade. He went on to the KOV Military Academy and then the Officers Academy, graduating on 27 September 1965. That same year he joined the League of Communists of Yugoslavia, remaining a member until the party disintegrated in 1990.

Mladić began his career in the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) in 1965 and was first posted to Macedonia. Over the following decades he commanded a platoon, an armoured battalion and a brigade in succession.

On 31 January 1989 he was appointed head of the education department of the Third Military District in Skopje, and on 14 January 1991 he became deputy commander in Priština. In June 1991 he was made deputy commander of the Priština Corps in Kosovo.

Later in 1991 he took command of the JNA 9th Corps in Knin, capital of the self-declared Republic of Serbian Krajina, and led it against Croatian forces. Units under his command took part in Operation Coast-91, and he aided Milan Martić's militia in the siege of Kijevo and the battle of Zadar. He was promoted to major general on 4 October 1991 and to lieutenant colonel general on 24 April 1992.

On 2 May 1992, a month after Bosnia and Herzegovina declared independence, Mladić and his generals blockaded Sarajevo, cutting off traffic, water and electricity. The siege, marked by shelling and sniper fire against civilians, lasted almost four years.

On 12 May 1992 the Bosnian Serb Assembly created the Army of Republika Srpska (VRS) and appointed Mladić commander of its Main Staff. He held the post until late 1996 and was promoted to colonel general on 24 June 1994, commanding roughly 80,000 troops.

In July 1995 VRS forces under his command overran the UN-declared safe areas of Srebrenica and Žepa. More than 40,000 Bosniaks who had sought refuge in Srebrenica were expelled, and an estimated 8,000 or more Bosniak men and boys were murdered. International courts later ruled the killings a genocide. After the town fell, Mladić was filmed describing Srebrenica as a "gift" to the Serb people and speaking of "revenge on the Turks".

In August 1995 Radovan Karadžić tried to remove Mladić from command, but backed down within days in the face of Mladić's support in the army. On 8 November 1996 Republika Srpska president Biljana Plavšić dismissed him.

The ICTY indicted Mladić on 24 July 1995 for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes, including the sniping campaign against civilians in Sarajevo. On 16 November 1995 the charges were expanded to cover Srebrenica. In July 1996 the tribunal confirmed all counts in his absence under Rule 61 and issued an international arrest warrant.

For years he lived openly in Belgrade, and a leaked Serbian military intelligence report later said he had been sheltered in army facilities until June 2002. After the arrest of Slobodan Milošević in 2001 he went into hiding, protected for a time by elements of the security services and later by family members. The United States and Serbia offered rewards for his capture, with Serbia raising its reward to 10 million euros in October 2010. His freedom badly damaged Serbia's relations with the European Union, which treated his arrest as a precondition for progress toward membership. In 2010 his family even asked a court to declare him dead.

Mladić was arrested on 26 May 2011 at a relative's house in Lazarevo, northern Serbia, as he was about to go for an early morning walk. He had been using the alias "Milorad Komadić". Serbian president Boris Tadić announced the arrest the same day, and Mladić was extradited to The Hague on 31 May 2011.

His trial opened on 16 May 2012. He survived a heart attack in detention on 23 December 2013. On 22 November 2017 the ICTY found him guilty of ten charges: one of genocide, five of crimes against humanity and four of violations of the laws or customs of war. He was acquitted of one further genocide count. As the top military officer with command responsibility, he was held responsible for both the siege of Sarajevo and the Srebrenica massacre, and was sentenced to life imprisonment. The UN human rights chief Zeid Ra'ad al-Hussein called him the "epitome of evil".

His appeal was heard in August 2020, and on 8 June 2021 the appeals chamber of the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals rejected it and confirmed the life sentence.

Mladić married Bosiljka (Bosa) in 1966. They had two children, a son, Darko, and a daughter, Ana.

Ana died in 1994 at the age of 23. Her death was reported as a suicide using her father's handgun, though accounts in Serbian publications conflicted and Mladić insisted until his death that she had been murdered. If you or someone you know is struggling, in the US you can call or text 988 (Suicide and Crisis Lifeline); in the UK and Ireland, Samaritans are on 116 123.

Mladić framed his campaign in Serb nationalist terms, presenting the war as a defence of Serbs and, in his own words after Srebrenica fell, as "revenge" against the "Turks" for Ottoman rule. He rejected the legitimacy of the Hague tribunal and never acknowledged guilt for the crimes of which he was convicted. Ironically, his own recorded words to the Bosnian Serb Assembly in May 1992 warned that expelling non-Serbs "would be genocide".

Mladić is remembered internationally as one of the principal architects of the worst atrocities in Europe since the Second World War. His conviction for genocide at Srebrenica stands as one of the most important judgments of the ICTY and of international criminal law.

His legacy remains bitterly contested in the Balkans. Survivors and the families of victims see his conviction as a hard-won measure of justice, while many Serb nationalists continue to regard him as a hero. Murals, banners and chants glorifying him have repeatedly drawn condemnation, and after his death UEFA opened disciplinary proceedings against Red Star Belgrade over banners praising him. Emir Suljagić, head of the Srebrenica Genocide Memorial, said his death "does not turn the criminal into a historical figure".

During his Yugoslav army career Mladić received the Order of Brotherhood and Unity (second class), the Order of Military Merits (third and second class) and the Order of the People's Army (second class).

Mladić's life and crimes have been the subject of numerous documentaries, including The Trial of Ratko Mladić, which followed his ICTY trial, and Al Jazeera's People and Power film Chasing Mladic. Footage of him at Srebrenica in July 1995 became some of the most widely seen images of the Bosnian War. In June 2009 a Bosnian television station broadcast home videos of him filmed while he was in hiding.

Beyond the crimes for which he was convicted, Mladić's years on the run exposed networks of official protection in Serbia and Republika Srpska. In 2004 UN High Representative Paddy Ashdown removed 58 officials suspected of helping war crimes suspects evade capture, and in 2006 a Belgrade court indicted 10 people for helping him hide between 2002 and 2006. The handling of his death and funeral in 2026, including a government plane, a military guard of honour and senior officials at the burial, provoked a diplomatic row with the European Union, the United Kingdom, Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Mladić's health declined sharply in detention. He had suffered a series of strokes before his arrest and a heart attack in 2013. In 2025 he was reported to be terminally ill, and requests for compassionate release were refused, including after a health emergency in April 2026. A UN court rejected his lawyers' final bid in May 2026, saying he was receiving comprehensive treatment.

He died at the United Nations Detention Unit in The Hague on 27 August 2026, after suffering several strokes. He was 84. His body was flown to Belgrade on a Serbian government plane on 3 September 2026 and met by an honour guard and Serbia's justice minister.

On 7 September 2026 Serbian Patriarch Porfirije led his funeral service at the Church of St Luke in Vidikovac, Belgrade. He was buried the same afternoon at Topčider Cemetery beside his daughter Ana, with a military rifle salute, before a crowd of thousands. A planned state funeral was scaled back after European objections. EU Enlargement Commissioner Marta Kos cancelled a visit to Serbia, the UK summoned Serbia's chargé d'affaires, and Bosnia and Herzegovina expelled two Serbian diplomats. UN Secretary-General António Guterres expressed solidarity with the victims and condemned the glorification of convicted war criminals.