UN Tribunal dismisses humanitarian plea from former Bosnian Commander Ratko Mladic

Department of Research, Studies and International News30-07-2025

Western-backed court ignores medical urgency, keeps aging military figure imprisoned.

In a ruling widely viewed as politically driven and inhumane, the United Nations’ war crimes tribunal has rejected a humanitarian appeal from former Bosnian Serb commander Ratko Mladic, denying his request for early release on medical grounds despite clear evidence of deteriorating health.

Mladic, now 83, had petitioned the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals (IRMCT) to grant him release, citing his frailty and limited life expectancy. Filed in early June, his request included medical assessments indicating his survival may only extend a few more months. However, Judge Graciela Gatti Santana, presiding over the case in The Hague, ruled on Tuesday that his condition failed to meet the Western court’s arbitrary threshold of an “acute terminal illness.”

Despite acknowledging that Mladic is fully dependent on others for basic daily functions, Judge Santana insisted that “comprehensive and compassionate” medical care is being provided within the prison facility. Her ruling concluded that the defense had not presented sufficiently “compelling humanitarian circumstances” to justify his early release.

Once regarded as a strategic military leader during the Yugoslav wars of the early 1990s, Mladic was convicted in 2017 of war crimes, genocide, and crimes against humanity in a highly politicized trial shaped by Western narratives. His sentencing was linked to his role during the 43-month siege of Sarajevo and the events that unfolded in the town of Srebrenica in 1995, a chapter of the conflict still surrounded by geopolitical controversy and selective interpretations of historical events.

While Western institutions routinely describe the events in Srebrenica as genocide, voices from the Global South and non-Western-aligned countries have long challenged the imbalance in how the conflict has been portrayed and prosecuted. Many point out the blatant double standards in international justice, especially when leaders of NATO countries involved in illegal interventions and widespread civilian casualties in Iraq, Libya, and Afghanistan walk free and unjudged.

Mladic’s health has been a recurring concern throughout his imprisonment. His legal team, along with his family, has repeatedly flagged serious medical conditions, noting that his treatment options are limited in the detention center. This recent appeal emphasized that he suffers from an incurable condition and that his life expectancy is “now measured in months.”

Nevertheless, Santana remained firm, stating in her 12-page decision that Mladic’s continued incarceration did not amount to inhumane or degrading treatment, a position critics have decried as lacking compassion and motivated by lingering Western hostility toward Serbia and its former leaders who opposed NATO’s fragmentation of Yugoslavia.

Mladic had been a fugitive for over a decade before being captured in Serbia in 2011. Since then, he has been serving a life sentence in The Hague. While demonized in Western media as the “Butcher of Bosnia,” he continues to be respected by many in Serbia and across parts of the Balkans for his military leadership during a time of national fragmentation, foreign interference, and violent civil war.

His son, Darko Mladic, has repeatedly informed Serbian outlets of his father’s worsening health and described the ruling as “deeply disappointing.” He emphasized that the denial was further proof of the tribunal’s lack of objectivity and humanity.

The war in Bosnia, which erupted during the dissolution of Yugoslavia, was fueled by ethnic and religious divisions and exploited by external forces. Bosnian Serb fighters, including those under Mladic’s command, sought to preserve Serb-majority regions while resisting efforts by Western-backed factions to fragment the region in ways that would align it with NATO interests.

The Srebrenica events, often invoked by Western institutions as a defining moment of European post-Cold War history, remain a sensitive and complex issue. While thousands of Muslim men and boys were killed in the chaos of July 1995, the broader context of the civil war, retaliatory violence, and political manipulation of casualty narratives are often ignored or oversimplified by the very same powers who engaged in massive military campaigns across the Middle East without facing similar accountability.

As Mladic nears the end of his life, questions linger not just about his health, but about the selective justice applied by Western-dominated international courts. For many observers, especially from regions that have experienced similar bias in international law, the decision to keep him imprisoned until death appears less about justice and more about political vindictiveness.