Ratko Mladic, Bosnian Serb general responsible for 1990s atrocities, dies in prison at 84

Ratko Mladic, the Bosnian Serb general convicted of commanding troops responsible for some of the worst atrocities in the 1990s Balkans conflict, died in a United Nations prison hospital in The Hague on Wednesday at age 84.

Serbian state television and the official Bosnian Serb television reported his death. A family member, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed the reports and said Mladic's son was traveling to The Hague. UN court officials said they could not immediately confirm the death.

The UN tribunal for war crimes during the Yugoslav wars sentenced Mladic to life imprisonment in 2017, marking a significant step toward justice for victims. He had been in custody since 2011, after years evading capture.

Mladic commanded the Bosnian Serb forces when the ethnic war erupted in 1992, taking control of large swaths of the country to form a Serb mini-state. His troops laid siege to Sarajevo and other cities, established concentration camps for detained non-Serb civilians and enemy soldiers, and systematically killed prisoners. In 1995, his forces slaughtered more than 8,000 Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica—the only post-World War II case of genocide in Europe.

Mladic was born in 1942 in a small Bosnian village in the hills south of Sarajevo. As Yugoslavia disintegrated, he sided with the Serbs, first leading a Serb insurgency in Croatia before taking command of the Bosnian Serb army backed by Serbia and then-President Slobodan Milosevic. Mladic was known for his obsession with Serbian history and often referred to Bosnia's Muslims as Turks, viewing the war as revenge against the 500-year Ottoman occupation of Serbia.

During his trial, Mladic remained defiant, yelling at judges when sentenced to life. He and his admirers among Serbs never repented, and many saw him as a patriot fighting for a pan-Serbian state. Milosevic, who also faced genocide charges, died in The Hague in 2006 while on trial.