The 90s terror of the nefarious Bosnian war was the general who led the Bosnian Serb forces during the Bosnian war. After 20 years on, Ratko Mladic has now become elderly and sickly with health problems who screams against the judges to try to postpone as much as possible a sentence for genocide by the UN International Criminal Tribunal for crimes in the former Yugoslavia.
The butcher of Bosnia, this is the nickname by which Mladic is known, was sentenced to life imprisonment: the court based in The Hague found him guilty of genocide and crimes against humanity for the Bosnian war of 1992-1995, recognizing his responsibility both in the Srebrenica massacre in which about 8 thousand Bosnian Muslims were killed, and in the siege of Sarajevo in which about 10 thousand people died. Mladic's legal team, 74enne, announced he will appeal against the conviction. According to the judges, Mladic contributed "significantly" to the elimination of Bosnian Muslims and Croats between May 1992 and November 1995, during which the court found it proved that the accused was the commander-in-chief of the forces who committed the crimes in Bosnia. According to the court, he had the "intention" and "criminal objective" of exterminating the Muslims of Srebrenica in 1995: "he was totally aware" of the deportations, forced detentions, assassinations and persecution of Muslims. Furthermore, the judges believe that Mladic "personally proposed and ordered" the bombings and indiscriminate shooting against civilians in Sarajevo, which remained under siege by Bosnian Serb forces for three and a half years: the intention, explained Judge Alphons Orie, was to "destroy" the inhabitants of the city, prevent the access of civilians to water, food and electricity and make sure that the citizens "live in a situation of stress and siege" that caused terror; all with the ultimate aim of "cleansing" Sarajevo of the Muslim population. The judge cited several examples of crimes committed by the former soldier and his soldiers. Among them, the facts of Bridge Brhpolje, dating back to 1992: Stopped Muslims were forced to jump into the river while Serbian soldiers fired at them; 22 men died and there was only one survivor. He also told a woman who was traveling on the streets of Sarajevo when he was hit by a sniper. The same bullet that pierced his stomach reached the head of his son, who died. And he mentioned "the brutal and systematic rapes" to which Muslim women, including 12-year-old girls arrested by Serbs in Bosnia, were subjected. Shortly before the life sentence was announced, Mladic had been dismissed from the courtroom, on Orie's orders, for shouting at the judges: he protested that they had rejected his lawyers' request to postpone the reading of the sentence for reasons of health. Mladic today suffered a "hypertension crisis" while listening to the verdict: he therefore asked for a five-minute break to go to the bathroom, but the former commander remained in the court bathroom for over 40 minutes; when the court session resumed, the lawyers asked for the sentence to be postponed to another day due to the state of health of the accused, but the former general's protest was triggered by the Court's no. years after the war ended in 1995, Mladic was arrested in 2011: he was hiding at his cousin's house in northern Serbia. The trial at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia began in 2012 and in these five years Mladic has always claimed to be innocent, assuring the soldiers had acted on their own initiative and that he had not given any order to those who were questioned . In recent years, the former soldier has had several heart attacks and the defense has focused on health conditions to try to postpone the sentence. For the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, established in May 1993 with the resolution 827 of the UN Security Council, this is the last case it faces. At the end of December, in fact, the Court will close its doors: in 24 years of activity it has issued 83 sentences for the Balkan wars, has presented charges against 161 people (from low-ranking soldiers to important figures in the government, army and police), he heard nearly 5 witnesses and held about 11 trials for genocide, crimes against humanity and violations of the laws governing war.