THE HAGUE, Netherlands — Ratko Mladić, the former Bosnian Serb military commander convicted over the Srebrenica massacre and the siege of Sarajevo, died on Thursday, August 27, 2026. He was 84.
Serbia’s public broadcaster, RTS, reported the death. Mladić’s lawyer subsequently confirmed it to Reuters.
Mladić led Bosnian Serb forces during the Balkan wars of the 1990s and became widely known as the “Butcher of Bosnia” because of his role in attacks against Bosnia’s non-Serb population.
The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia convicted him in 2017 after finding him responsible for a campaign intended to remove non-Serbs from Bosnian Serb-claimed territory.
According to the United Nations tribunal’s case record, Mladić was found guilty of genocide, persecution, extermination, murder, deportation, forcible transfer, terror, unlawful attacks on civilians and hostage-taking.
The judgment covered his role in the mass killing at Srebrenica and the campaign of shelling and sniper attacks against civilians in Sarajevo.
The tribunal sentenced him to life imprisonment.
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