Thousands gathered in Belgrade today for the funeral of convicted war criminal Ratko Mladic, sparking condemnation from Brussels for the glorification of a man convicted of genocide during the 1990s war in Bosnia.
Mladic died in late August, aged 84, while serving a life sentence in The Hague for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity committed during the war – a reputation that led international press to dub him the ‘Butcher of Bosnia’.
Serbian Justice Minister Nenad Vujic initially announced “military and state honours” for Mladic, triggering international outrage, before President Aleksandar Vucic tempered the decision.
Mr Vucic has rejected accusations of glorifying the former general, describing the service as in keeping with the family’s wishes.
Darko, Mladic’s son, who officially organised the funeral, stood by the casket early today as mourners streamed into the church, many kissing the coffin.
The service was held at the small St Luka Church rather than the grand temple of Saint Sava, where state funerals are normally held, but several Serbian ministers attended, alongside Russia’s ambassador to the country and Republika Srpska’s former president Milorad Dodik.
Mr Vucic earlier said the state would ensure the event passed off “safely” but he would not attend in person due to a prior engagement.
After hours on display, the head of the Serbian Orthodox Church held a service.
“We know that his name will remain deeply etched in the memory and prayers of the majority of our Serbian Orthodox people, who feel and nurture a deep sense of gratitude towards him,” Patriarch Porfirije told those inside the church.
As the casket was carried outside by soldiers, waiting crowds lined the street, waving flags bearing the former general’s face alongside large national tricolours of Serbia and the Bosnian Serb entity Republika Srpska.
According to AFP journalists and aerial footage of the procession, crowds in the area numbered in the thousands as the slow procession moved towards the nearby Topcider cemetery.
Despite his conviction, many Serb nationalists continue to paint Mladic as a hero and protector, particularly in the Republika Srpska where his death sparked vigils.
As the procession moved down the road, war veterans surrounded the van carrying his body, as the crowds moved towards the cemetery where Mladic’s daughter, who killed herself during the Bosnian war, is also buried.
After Mladic’s casket arrived on a government plane last week, it was draped in national flags and carried by soldiers before being driven in a motorcade greeted by groups of young men on overpasses holding banners.
Its reception in the country sparked condemnation from regional and international leaders, including the European Union, which a spokesman repeated today.
“Any glorification of war criminals, genocide denial and revisionism contradict the most fundamental European values and have no place in the EU or in EU candidate countries,” an EU spokesman said in a statement.
The 1992-1995 war left around 100,000 people dead and displaced 2.2 million.
Mladic was the military figurehead of the Bosnian Serb leadership alongside former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic and Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic.
The United Nations war crimes court convicted him of genocide over the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, where Bosnian Serb forces killed around 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys in a UN-protected safe zone.
The atrocity was Europe’s worst act of bloodshed since World War II.
Mladic was also convicted of persecuting and forcibly expelling Bosnian Muslims and Croats, terrorising civilians during the siege of Sarajevo and taking UN peacekeepers hostage during NATO airstrikes in 1995.
He was arrested in 2011, 16 years after he was first indicted, and sentenced to life in prison in 2021 after a nine-year trial.
But on Serbia’s pro-government commercial television station, Informer, the live broadcast of the memorial was glowing.
“History is being written,” one commentator said on the channel, in rolling coverage with an image of Mladic’s face superimposed in the corner of the broadcast.
Many at the funeral, which young men and war veterans heavily attended, wore shirts emblazoned with his face.