Serbia’s President Aleksandar Vucic condemns U.N. court after Ratko Mladic dies while serving life sentence

Serbia’s President Aleksandar Vucic criticized a U.N. war-crimes court in The Hague on Friday, accusing it of “uncivilized behavior” for rejecting a request to grant early release to Ratko Mladic, the former Bosnian Serb army commander who died Thursday while serving a life sentence for crimes committed during the wars in Bosnia in the 1990s.

Mladic died Thursday at age 84, The Washington Times reported, as he remained incarcerated under a life term imposed for war crimes. The reporting said Vucic framed the court’s refusal to approve an early release as a failure to treat Mladic differently on humanitarian or other grounds.

Vucic’s remarks were directed at the U.N. institution that adjudicates major international criminal cases in The Hague, where Mladic was convicted. The Washington Times report characterized the president’s comments as a sharp public rebuke of the court’s decision-making process, particularly in light of Mladic’s death occurring before any transfer or release could be implemented.

The dispute centers on the question of whether Mladic should have been allowed to leave custody earlier than the end of his sentence. According to the report, the court declined to grant that early-release outcome, and Vucic used the circumstances of Mladic’s death to argue the tribunal’s approach was unacceptable.

Mladic’s case has been closely followed both in the region and internationally because it involved some of the most notorious conduct of the Bosnian war, including mass atrocities that led to international prosecution. His death, while still under sentence, raised renewed questions about how international criminal institutions handle late-stage detainee requests and the timing of humanitarian decisions.

Neither the report nor the supplied information specified the internal rationale the court used to deny the early release, nor did it describe any appeal steps or timelines beyond the stated refusal and Mladic’s death. The Washington Times report also did not describe whether Serbia intended to pursue further legal action or how the decision affects current detainee-processing procedures.

The episode comes amid heightened sensitivities around accountability for wartime crimes and around the relationship between Serbia’s government and international judicial mechanisms. With Mladic now deceased in custody, the focus is likely to shift from release prospects to how the tribunal will formally record the outcome of related proceedings and how authorities in Serbia and the region address public and political reactions to the death.