Ratko Mladic, the former Bosnian Serb military commander serving a life sentence for war crimes, has suffered a minor stroke, his son revealed on Wednesday, describing the situation as "very serious".
Mladic, aged 83 according to UN court records, was convicted in 2017 by a UN tribunal for genocide and war crimes during the Bosnian War in the 1990s.
He was found guilty of orchestrating the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, in which 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys were killed, an atrocity deemed genocide by international courts.
His son, Darko Mladic, spoke to Bosnian Serb television channel RTRS, saying he was first informed of his father’s condition last Friday by a doctor authorised by the UN.
The doctor reportedly explained that Mladic had suffered a “minor silent stroke” and was transported to a civilian hospital for scans and examinations before being returned to prison. According to Darko, his father’s health is deteriorating day by day.
Mladic was finally captured in Serbia in 2011 after evading arrest for 16 years. While many Serbs continue to regard him as a hero, his family often speaks about his fragile condition in Serbian media.
The former commander was also held responsible for leading a campaign of "ethnic cleansing" aimed at expelling Muslims and Croats from regions where he, former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, and Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic sought to establish a "Greater Serbia".
