Serbia Buries Ratko Mladic With Military Honors, EU Calls It 'Glorification' of a Genocide Convict

Since Ratko Mladic died in a UN prison cell in The Hague on Aug. 27 at age 84, Serbia has spent 11 days deciding exactly how much honor to give a man convicted of genocide. On Monday, Sept. 7, it answered that question with soldiers, a state minister, a Serbian Orthodox patriarch, and thousands of mourners in the streets of Belgrade.

Mladic's coffin, draped in the Serbian flag, was carried by uniformed soldiers to St. Luka church, a smaller venue than the Temple of Saint Sava normally reserved for state funerals, according to the BBC and Breitbart. His military cap and sabre rested on top of the casket. A display of his medals sat in front of it.

Patriarch Porfirije, head of the Serbian Orthodox Church, led the service and told mourners Mladic's name would remain "deeply etched in the memory and prayers of the majority of our Serbian Orthodox people, who feel and nurture a deep sense of gratitude towards him," according to the BBC and Breitbart, which both quoted the same remarks.

Outside, a banner read "Welcome, General, thanks be to your mother for bearing a hero," The Guardian reported. Serbian Defence Minister Bratislav Gasic and Justice Minister Nenad Vujic joined the crowds, according to the BBC. Breitbart added that Russia's ambassador to Serbia and Milorad Dodik, the former president of Bosnia's Serb-run Republika Srpska entity, also attended. President Aleksandar Vucic did not show up in person, citing a prior engagement, per Breitbart.

Mladic's son, Darko, spoke at the graveside in Topcider cemetery. "They set up artificial courts for our heroes in order to turn defenders into criminals and traitors into heroes," he said, according to Breitbart. "Thank you, brothers, for coming to decide whether my father was a hero or a criminal."

The UN Court's Findings

Mladic commanded Bosnian Serb forces during the 1992-95 Bosnian war. A UN tribunal convicted him in 2017 of genocide for the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, where roughly 8,000 Bosniak Muslim men and boys were killed, according to the BBC and Fox News. He was also convicted for the 1,460-day siege of Sarajevo, which killed more than 10,000 people, and for running concentration camps that held non-Serb civilians, per The Guardian and Fox News. The broader Bosnian war killed more than 100,000 people and displaced over 2 million, according to The Guardian.

He was arrested in 2011, 16 years after his indictment, and sentenced to life in prison in 2021 after a nine-year trial, the BBC reported. He never expressed remorse.

Brussels' Response

EU Enlargement Commissioner Marta Kos canceled a planned visit to Serbia on Sept. 5, saying "the return of his remains to Belgrade reminds Europe of the darkest pages in our recent history," according to WSLS and The Independent. Days earlier, at the Bled Strategic Forum in Slovenia, Kos had already warned Belgrade that "the glorification of war criminals has no place ... in an EU member country, nor in a candidate country," per the Epoch Times.

An EU spokesperson repeated the warning Monday: "Any glorification of war criminals, genocide denial and revisionism contradict the most fundamental European values and have no place in the EU or in EU candidate countries," according to the BBC and The Guardian, which both carried the identical statement.

Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic went further before the funeral, saying full state honors for Mladic would effectively close the door on Serbia's EU bid, the Epoch Times reported. Serbia has been a formal EU candidate since 2012, but membership talks have stalled, according to the BBC.

Vucic pushed back on the criticism before the burial, calling Kos's statement "very short but stupid" and asking, according to regional broadcaster N1 as cited by WSLS, who exactly Kos thought had "glorified" anything, and whether the EU wanted Serbia to ban the funeral outright.

The Nationalist Argument

Serbian nationalists and Mladic's family argue this was a private funeral organized by his son, not a formal state event, and that a citizen's family has a right to bury him according to their faith and wishes regardless of his conviction. Justice Minister Vujic's earlier promise of "full state honors" was scaled back. The service was held at a small parish church, not the grand state venue used for official funerals, and Vucic himself stayed away. Mourners like pensioner Radojka Visic, who traveled from Banja Luka, told AFP she came to see off "a national hero." Supporters of Mladic, particularly in Republika Srpska and among Serb nationalists, hold this view widely, even though it does not change what a UN tribunal found about Srebrenica.

Kos has not said whether Monday's funeral, held with less pomp than originally threatened, changes her assessment, or when or whether her canceled visit will be rescheduled.