Thousands of Serbs Attend Ratko Mladic Funeral as EU Condemns Glorification of War Criminal

Thousands of Serbs gathered in Belgrade for the funeral of Ratko Mladic, the former Bosnian Serb commander convicted of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. His coffin stood in the small Serbian Orthodox Church of St. Luke with his officer’s cap and saber placed on top, alongside military decorations.

Supporters watched the service on a screen outside the church, while clergy gathered inside. Mladic died two weeks earlier at the age of 84 in Scheveningen, where he had been imprisoned. The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia sentenced him to life in prison in 2017.

Under Mladic’s command, more than 8,000 Bosnian Muslims were killed in Srebrenica, a town designated a United Nations safe area. He also oversaw the siege of Sarajevo, which lasted more than three years and killed more than 10,000 people.

The European Union sharply criticized Serbia’s handling of the death of a man it described as one of the principal perpetrators of Europe’s largest mass killing since the Second World War. European Commissioner for Enlargement Marta Kos, from Slovenia, cancelled a visit to Serbia in protest. A European Commission spokesperson said, “Any glorification of war criminals, denial of genocide and revisionism is contrary to the most fundamental European values and has no place in the EU or in EU candidate countries.”

Serbian authorities said they had done nothing wrong because Mladic’s family organized the funeral, meaning it was not a state funeral. Yet the government transported his remains on a state aircraft, and soldiers ceremonially carried the coffin, covered in Serbian flags, to a funeral car after it arrived in Belgrade. A military memorial was also held on army grounds on the Saturday before the funeral. Supporters of Red Star Belgrade displayed a huge banner bearing Mladic’s image, while a mural of the convicted war criminal appeared elsewhere in the city.

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Any glorification of war criminals, denial of genocide and revisionism is contrary to the most fundamental European values and has no place in the EU or in EU candidate countries.