Ratko Mladic, the former Bosnian Serb army commander who died last week while serving a life sentence for genocide and war crimes in Bosnia, will be flown to Serbia on Thursday. His body was released by the U.N. court in The Hague, where he had been imprisoned since 2017 after being convicted of genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes committed during the Bosnian War. Mladic's funeral is expected to be a huge event in Belgrade, with some groups of citizens gathering along the route from the airport to the hospital, holding banners that read "Thank you, General" and "Heroes never die". However, the EU has distanced itself from the celebration, with EU Commissioner Marta Kos cancelling her trip to Serbia after a Serbian government plane took Mladic's body to Belgrade. Kos stated that the glorification surrounding Mladic's death is incompatible with the values of the European Union, which requires confronting the past and respecting the victims of war crimes. The funeral will be watched closely by international observers, who are concerned about how Serbia will handle the legacy of a man responsible for the deaths of over 8,000 Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica during the Bosnian War.
The glorification surrounding his death is incompatible with the values on which the EU path is built.
That path requires confronting the past, genuine reconciliation and respecting the victims of war crimes
| Signal | Value | Weight |
|---|---|---|
| Correction rate | 0.000 | 0.4 |
| Uncertainty density | 0.103 | 0.25 |
| Assertive mismatch rate | 0.000 | 0.35 |