The body of convicted Bosnian Serb war criminal Ratko Mladic was returned to Serbia with military honors on Sept. 3, drawing condemnation from European officials and renewed scrutiny of Belgrade’s handling of his funeral.
Mladic’s coffin was flown from the Netherlands aboard a Serbian government aircraft, accompanied by his son and Justice Minister Nenad Vujic.
Draped in the flags of Serbia and Bosnia’s Serb-led Republika Srpska entity, it was carried from the aircraft by Serbian soldiers and taken under police escort to a military hospital in Belgrade for an autopsy.
Small groups of supporters gathered along the route, lighting flares and displaying banners.
Belgian Foreign Minister Maxime Prevot condemned the honors, calling them “shameful and disrespectful” to Mladic’s victims and their families.
“I condemn that act in the strongest terms,” Prevot wrote on X, adding that it was taking Serbia further from the European Union’s fundamental values and ran counter to expectations of an EU candidate country.
EU Enlargement Commissioner Marta Kos postponed a planned visit to Serbia, saying the glorification surrounding Mladic’s death was incompatible with the values underpinning the country’s EU path.
Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic also warned that a state funeral would amount to Serbia closing its own door to the bloc.
Funeral arrangements have remained politically sensitive.
Vujic said last week that Mladic would receive all military and state honors “to which he is entitled.”
President Aleksandar Vucic later said no final decision had been made and that the arrangements rested with Mladic’s family.
His burial is expected to take place in Belgrade on Sept. 7.
Mladic died on Aug. 27 at the age of 84 while serving a life sentence at a United Nations detention facility in The Hague.
The wartime commander of the Bosnian Serb army was convicted in 2017 of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. The charges included his role in the 1995 Srebrenica genocide, in which more than 8,000 Bosniak men and boys were killed, and the siege of Sarajevo.
Mladic was arrested in Serbia in May 2011 after nearly 16 years in hiding. His convictions and life sentence were upheld on appeal in June 2021
