Funeral held for war criminal Ratko Mladic in Belgrade

BELGRADE

People watch a religious service led by Serbian Orthodox Church Patriarch Porfirije at St. Luka Church during the funeral of convicted war criminal Ratko Mladic, who died last week while serving a life sentence for genocide and other atrocities during the war in Bosnia, in Belgrade, Serbia, Monday, Sept. 7, 2026. (AP Photo)

Crowds gathered in Belgrade on Sept. 7 for the funeral of convicted war criminal Ratko Mladic, as Brussels accused some in the country of “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 in Bosnia.

Mourners streamed into St Luka church in Belgrade from 7 a.m. to pay respects, with many kissing Mladic’s closed coffin, as Serbian Orthodox priests read prayers.

Police had closed off streets in the surrounding part of the city as crowds began arriving.

AFP reporters saw large crowds outside the church, many wearing shirts praising Mladic, as doors opened with aerial images showing hundreds already queuing to enter.

Mladic’s casket arrived in the country last week aboard a government plane, where it had been carried by six soldiers and draped in flags.

As it was driven from the airport in a motorcade, groups of young men held banners praising the former general, and some police were seen saluting as it passed.

Last week’s scenes drew condemnation from the European Union’s enlargement commissioner, Marta Kos, who cancelled a forthcoming visit to Serbia, saying the “glorification surrounding his death is incompatible with the values on which the EU path is built.”

Denis Becirovic, chairman of Bosnia’s tripartite presidency, called it “an act of identification by Serbia’s leadership with one of the worst killers in European history.”

Mladic’s wartime atrocities during the break-up of the former Yugoslavia earned him the nickname “Butcher of Bosnia” in international media.

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 U.N.-protected safe zone.

The atrocity was Europe’s worst act of bloodshed since World War II.