War criminal Ratko Mladić dies in prison
Ratko Mladić, the Bosnian Serb former general nicknamed the "Butcher of Bosnia", died on Thursday in the United Nations Detention Unit in The Hague aged 83. He was sentenced to life imprisonment by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in 2017 for war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity committed during the Bosnian War (1992–1995).
For some a butcher, for others a hero
Perceptions of Mladić are extremely divided today, the Salzburger Nachrichten emphasises:
“His death is unlikely to bring any more reconciliation to his torn homeland than his arrest and conviction did. Opinions on Mladić will remain divided in Bosnia's fractured, multi-ethnic state even after his death. And while nationalist newspapers in Serbia are once again singing the praise of this supposed national hero, Ratko Mladić will go down in the history books as the 'Butcher of Bosnia' and as one of Europe's worst mass murderers since the Second World War.”
A sinister role model
Unfortunately many people - including several mass murderers - regard Mladić as an idol, Corriere della Sera laments:
“They still defend him, if not worse. Mladić has never ceased to fascinate other slaughterers, such as the Australian madman who murdered dozens of Muslims in Christchurch in 2019. Anders Breivik, the [Norwegian] white supremacist who carried out the Utøya massacre, claimed to have been inspired by Mladić. In Kalinovik, Mladić's home village, there's a monument with a huge portrait of the 'hero' Ratko. In Belgrade, his name is celebrated in hundreds of graffiti tags, and even the tennis player Novak Djoković boasts about associating with some of the former commander's friends.”