Image: Ratko Mladic

World

Ratko Mladic conviction caps decades of grief over Srebrenica massacre

Mladic was convicted for some of the worst atrocities of the Bosnian War, including the slaughter of 8,000 Muslims in Srebrenica.

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Image: Ratko Mladic

Bosnian Serb army commander General Ratko Mladic inspecting troops in the eastern Bosnian town of Vlasenica on Dec. 2, 1995. Mladic, the so-called Butcher of Bosnia, was sentenced to life in prison on Nov. 22 after being found guilty of genocide and crimes against humanity, acts that included Europe's deadliest massacre since World War II.

— Oleg Stjepanovic / AP file
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Citizens sprint across 'Sniper Alley' during the siege of Sarajevo in 1994. Mladic's forces besieged the city for 43 months, during which time an estimated 10,000 people were killed.
— Tom Stoddart / Getty Images file
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A man supports the head of a Bosnian Muslim woman as she is transported to a hospital in the back of a car. She was badly injured by Serbian mortar shelling of Sarajevo on June 27, 1992.
— Christophe Simon / AFP - Getty Images file
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Image: Ratko Mladic pats one of his soldiers on the cheek at the Lukavica barracks

Ratko Mladic pats one of his soldiers on the cheek at the Lukavica barracks on the outskirts of Sarajevo on Feb. 15, 1994.

— Pascal Guyot / AFP - Getty Images
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The feet of a 10 year old Bosnian Muslim boy, Elvedin Sendo, clad in grass-stained running shoes and marked with his name tag, protrude from under a blanket at a hospital morgue after his school came under a shelling attack in Sarajevo on March 22, 1993.
— Chris Helgren / Reuters file
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Bosnian Serb wartime leader, Radovan Karadzic, second right, and his general Ratko Mladic, first left, walk accompanied by bodyguards on the Mount Vlasic front line on April 15, 1995. Karadzic was arrested on July 21, 2008, and extradicted to The Hague.
— Sava Radovanovic / AP file
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Evacuees from Srebrenica look out from a U.N. truck in Medgas, north of Sarajevo, as a convoy carrying evacuees from the besieged Bosnian town made its way to Tuzla on March 20, 1993.
— Michel Euler / AP file
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A group of Bosnian Muslims, refugees from Srebrenica, walk from the village of Potocari to Muslim-held territory near Olovo on July 13, 1995.
— Reuters
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Image: Ratko Mladic, left, drinks a toast with Dutch U.N. Commander Tom Karremans

Ratko Mladic, left, drinks a toast with Dutch U.N. Commander Tom Karremans, second right, in the village of Potocari, 3 miles from Srebrenica, on July 12, 1995. Mladic is accused of orchestrating the methodical slaughter of up to 8,000 Muslims from the "safe area" of Srebrenica, in the worst massacre in Europe since World War II.

— AP
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Bosnian refugees from Srebrenica cry over their missing men in a refugee camp at Tuzla airport on July 14, 1995.
— Wade Goddard / Reuters file
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Evacuees from Srebrenica board a U.N. truck to be taken to a refugee camp at Tuzla on July 15, 1995.
— Reuters file
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Image: Grieving women at a refugee center set up to shelter Muslim families

Grieving women at a refugee center set up to shelter Muslim families after they fled Srebrenica. Over a period of five days the Bosnian Serb army took control of the small spa town and separated Muslim men from their families. Over 8,000 men and boys were systematically murdered in the fields and valleys around the town.

— Tom Stoddart / Getty Images
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Forensic experts from the international war crimes tribunal in the Hague work to uncover a pile of partly decomposed bodies on July 24, 1996. The mass grave was found in the village of Pilica and was believed to contain the remains of some of the missing men from Srebrenica.
— Odd Andersen / AFP - Getty Images
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Bosnian pathologist Rifat Kesetovic examines skulls of victims in a hospital in Tuzla on March 28, 1997. The remains were found in mass graves and in wooded areas following the 1995 massacre in Srebrenica.
— Reuters file
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A forensic expert with the International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP) holds a photograph found with remains of a victim of the Srebrenica massacre, in the Bosnian town of Tuzla on July 7, 2005.
— Damir Sagolj / Reuters file
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Image: Ratko Mladic

Two women cry over a coffin on July 10, 2005 in a factory hall in Potocari where the remains of 610 victims of Srebrenica massacre awaited burial. Their bodies were found in some 60 mass graves around the town, and a mass funeral was held on the tenth anniversary of the massacre.
— Damir Sagolj / Reuters file
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Image: Ratko Mladic

A photograph of Mladic taken in Belgrade after his arrest on May 26, 2011.
— Politika via Reuters file
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Image: A police car drives by the house, on left, where Ratko Mladic was found in the village of Lazarevo

A police car drives by the house, on left, where Ratko Mladic was found in the village of Lazarevo, about 50 kilometers north of Belgrade, Serbia on May 28, 2011. Mladic was arrested at the house two days earlier after 16 years on the run.

— Vadim Ghirda / AP
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Pro-Mladic demonstrators are engulfed by smoke from flares during a support rally in Belgrade on May 29, 2011. To many Serbs, Mladic remains a national hero.
— Vadim Ghirda / AP file
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A forensic expert from the International Commission for Missing Persons (ICMP) works on trying to identify the remains of a victim of the Srebrenica massacre, at the ICMP centre near Tuzla on June 1, 2011.
— Dado Ruvic / Reuters file
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Image: Ratko Mladic

Ratko Mladic salutes as he takes his seat in the International Criminal Tribunal as he faces war crime charges on June 3, 2011 in The Hague, Netherlands.
— Serge Ligtenberg / Getty Images file
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A woman crosses the street in Sarajevo in front of a mural memorializing the Srebrenica massacre on Nov. 15, 2017.
— Amel Emric / AP
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Image: Ex-Bosnian Serb wartime general Ratko Mladic

Mladic appears for his sentencing at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, the U.N. court based in the Netherlands, on Nov. 22, 2017. He was sentenced to life in prison.

— Peter Dejong / Reuters
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Relatives of victims watch a live broadcast of Mladic's sentencing from a memorial in Potocari, near Srebrenica, on Nov. 22.
— Dimitar Dilkoff / AFP - Getty Images
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