Mladic funeral with Serbian state honours draws EU condemnation

Thousands gathered in Belgrade for the funeral of Ratko Mladic, the former commander of the Bosnian Serb army, in a ceremony reported to have been organised with Serbian state honours.

Mladic was convicted of genocide and crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. The convictions included crimes linked to the siege of Sarajevo and the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, in which more than 8,000 men and boys were killed.

The funeral has drawn criticism over the public glorification of a convicted war criminal. The European Union said there was no place for glorifying convicted war criminals, according to reporting cited in the source material.

The ceremony has also renewed questions about the limits of international justice and whether legal judgments have deterred political and military leaders from launching wars. Those broader conclusions remain the view of the Al Jazeera opinion article reporting on the event.

Mladic’s conviction formally recorded his responsibility for crimes committed during the breakup of Yugoslavia. The funeral, and the state recognition reported alongside it, have placed the continuing political meaning of that history back in public view.