Ratko Mladić

Biography

Ratko Mladić was born in 1942 in Božanovići, in present-day Bosnia and Herzegovina. After military schooling he graduated in 1965 and began his career in the Yugoslav People's Army, joining the League of Communists of Yugoslavia the same year. As Yugoslavia broke up he rose to senior command in the army and took part in the war in Croatia.

In May 1992, after the Bosnian Serb assembly created the Army of Republika Srpska, Mladić became commander of its main staff and led it through the Bosnian War. Forces under his command besieged Sarajevo and in July 1995 carried out the Srebrenica massacre.

The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia indicted him and in 1996 issued an international arrest warrant, but he evaded capture for nearly sixteen years, sheltered first by Serbian and Bosnian Serb security forces and later by family. He was arrested in Serbia in May 2011 and sent to The Hague, where his trial opened in 2012. In November 2017 he was convicted of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes and sentenced to life imprisonment, which was upheld on appeal in 2021. He died in custody in The Hague in 2026.