Serbia receives Ratko Mladic's body with military honours

The body of former Bosnian Serb army commander Ratko Mladic has been returned to Belgrade from The Hague and received with military honours. The casket, draped in the Serbian national flag, arrived on a Serbian government plane on Thursday after being flown from the Netherlands. Serbian officials said funeral arrangements would be announced in the coming days.

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The UN tribunal confirmed that Mladic's remains were handed over to his next of kin at Rotterdam The Hague Airport on Thursday afternoon. Serbian Justice Minister Nenad Vujic said the family would set out the funeral plans, while pro-government media reported that a military commemoration could be held on Saturday and the funeral on Monday. Vujic also said police and the state security agency expected that tens of thousands of people could attend the service.

Mladic died last week at the age of 84 while serving a life sentence in a UN detention facility. He was convicted in 2017 of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes committed during the 1992-1995 Bosnian War. The casket was carried from the aircraft in Belgrade by six soldiers, accompanied by Mladic's son, Darko, and the justice minister.

The return of his remains has drawn attention in a region where memories of the war remain deeply divisive. The case remains significant because Mladic was one of the most prominent figures of the Bosnian conflict, which killed more than 100,000 people and left over 1 million homeless before ending in a 1995 peace agreement brokered by the United States. His conviction by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia was part of a wider effort to prosecute wartime atrocities in the former Yugoslavia.

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In Serbia, however, many people continue to view him as a hero despite the tribunal's findings. The return of his body also comes against a backdrop of continuing disagreement over the legacy of the Bosnian war. Serbia has long argued that the West and the tribunal focused disproportionately on Serb crimes, while victims' groups and many in Bosnia see Mladic as a central figure in atrocities that included the Srebrenica massacre, which was later recognised as genocide.

The public response to the burial is likely to be closely watched across the region. What remains unclear is the exact timing and format of the funeral and whether the expected commemoration will proceed as reported. It is also not yet clear how large the turnout will be or whether the event will prompt any public order concerns.

The coming days are likely to show how Serbian authorities manage the ceremony and how neighbouring states react to the public honouring of a convicted war criminal.

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