August 27, 2026 – Ratko Mladic, the former Bosnian Serb military commander convicted of genocide for atrocities committed during the 1992-1995 Bosnian war, has died in a United Nations prison hospital at The Hague. He was 84 years old.
The UN tribunal in The Hague confirmed his death on Thursday, August 27, 2026.[reference:2] Serbian state broadcaster RTS first reported that Mladic died in the prison hospital after suffering several strokes in recent months. A family member confirmed the reports to the Associated Press, stating that Mladic’s son, Darko Mladic, was traveling to The Hague.
Mladic was serving a life sentence after being convicted in 2017 by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) on charges of genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. His conviction and life sentence were upheld on appeal in 2021.
The tribunal found him guilty of orchestrating the 1995 massacre of more than 8,000 Bosniak (Bosnian Muslim) men and boys in the UN-designated “safe area” of Srebrenica — recognized as the only post-World War II case of genocide in Europe.
He was also convicted for his role in the nearly four-year siege of Sarajevo, where artillery and sniper fire killed more than 10,000 civilians.The tribunal determined that Mladic’s goal was “ethnic cleansing” — the forcible expulsion of Bosniaks, Croats, and other non-Serbs to create a Greater Serbia.
After the war ended in 1995, Mladic evaded capture for 16 years.He was finally arrested in May 2011 in rural northern Serbia and extradited to The Hague to face justice. He had been held at the UN detention facility since his transfer.
Throughout his trial and appeals, Mladic never recognized the court’s authority and maintained his innocence. When sentenced to life in prison in 2017, he shouted at the judges: “This is all lies, you are all liars!”
In recent months, Mladic’s health had declined. Serbian officials and his family had appealed for his release on humanitarian grounds, but those requests were rejected by the Hague tribunal, which ruled he was receiving comprehensive care in prison.
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