Ratko Mladic, the former Bosnian Serb military commander known as the "Butcher of Bosnia" and convicted of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity for atrocities committed during the 1992-1995 Bosnian War, has died at the age of 84 at the United Nations detention facility in The Hague.

Serbian state television reported that Mladic died in the prison hospital after suffering several strokes.

Convicted over Srebrenica genocide

Known internationally as the "Butcher of Bosnia," Mladic was sentenced to life imprisonment by the UN tribunal. In 2021, judges upheld his life sentence, rejecting his appeal against his 2017 conviction for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The tribunal found Mladic guilty of commanding Bosnian Serb forces during the 1995 Srebrenica genocide, in which more than 8,000 Bosniak Muslim men and boys were massacred after the UN-declared safe area fell to Bosnian Serb forces.

One of the key architects of the Bosnian War

Before his arrest in 2011, Mladic spent nearly a decade evading capture.

Widely known as the "Butcher of Bosnia," he served as the military commander of Bosnian Serb forces and was considered the military counterpart of former Bosnian Serb political leader Radovan Karadzic. Both were prosecuted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) over atrocities committed during the Bosnian War.

Mladic's death marks the end of the life of one of the principal figures held responsible for some of the worst atrocities committed in Europe since World War II.(ILKHA)