A UN court has ruled that Dutch authorities will not open a criminal investigation into the death of Ratko Mladic, the convicted Bosnian Serb war criminal.
Mladic, who was serving a life sentence in The Hague for genocide and war crimes committed during the 1992-1995 Bosnian war, died in hospital on Thursday after suffering several strokes in recent months.
- Advertisement -
Even his age had long been disputed.
Mladic said he was born in March 1943, while the tribunal recorded his birth year as 1942. Local media widely reported that he died aged 84.
The authorities had decided “that no criminal investigation would be opened and that they would not be conducting an autopsy”, the statement said.
The Mechanism also said it had appointed Judge Iain Bonomy to lead a separate inquiry into Mladic’s death. That investigation remained under way, with its details still confidential for the time being.
On Monday, just days before Mladic died, Serbian authorities had appealed for his release on medical grounds so he could receive treatment in Serbia.
The Mechanism had rejected a request from his family for his release in May.
Mladic was arrested in Serbia in 2011, and his conviction was upheld on appeal in 2021.
Among the crimes attributed to him was the July 1995 massacre of about 8,000 Bosnian men and boys in the eastern Srebrenica region — the worst atrocity of its kind in Europe since WWII.
The Mechanism is responsible for handling the remaining duties of UN tribunals based in The Hague, including the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, which convicted Mladic.
