Ratko Mladic, the former Bosnian Serb military commander convicted of genocide and crimes against humanity, will be buried with full state honors in Serbia, officials have announced. Mladic died at a hospital in The Hague, Netherlands, at the age of 84 while serving a life sentence imposed by the United Nations tribunal for war crimes in the former Yugoslavia.

Serbia’s Justice Minister Nenad Vujic confirmed on Friday that the country intends to provide Mladic with all the military and state honors he is entitled to. He added that Serbian officials are prepared to travel to The Hague to manage funeral arrangements as soon as the necessary formalities are finalized.

Mladic was a central figure during the Bosnian War of the 1990s, where his forces were responsible for some of the most brutal atrocities in Europe since World War II. As commander of the Bosnian Serb army, he led campaigns that involved the siege of Sarajevo, widespread ethnic cleansing, and the establishment of detention camps targeting non-Serb populations. The most notorious of these crimes occurred in 1995 in Srebrenica, where over 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys were systematically executed in what has been recognized as the first genocide in Europe since the Second World War.

Despite overwhelming evidence and his life sentence handed down by the UN tribunal in 2017, Mladic consistently denied all charges. During his trial, he maintained defiance, vehemently rejecting the court's findings. After the war, he went into hiding in 1996 and was not arrested until May 2011.

Reactions to Mladic’s death have been mixed. Members of victims’ groups, including Munira Subasic of the Mothers of Srebrenica organization, expressed sorrow over his death while lamenting ongoing denial of his crimes among segments of the Bosnian Serb population. Subasic described Mladic as a "major war criminal" whose actions inflicted lasting pain on survivors and families of victims. She criticized those who still regard him as a hero and noted the continued struggle for acknowledgment and justice decades after the conflict.

Mladic’s supporters have viewed him as a patriot fighting to establish a Serb state within Bosnia and Herzegovina. Throughout the war, he framed his campaign as retribution for centuries of Ottoman rule, often referring to Bosnian Muslims disparagingly as “Turks” and expressing his intent for revenge, particularly during the assault on Srebrenica.

The decision by Serbian authorities to accord Mladic full state honors has sparked controversy, reflecting the entrenched divisions and unresolved legacies of the Bosnian conflict that continue to affect the region.