Serbian President Vucic criticizes refusal to release Ratko Mladic for medical treatment

BELGRADE, August 18. /TASS/. Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said that even as former Bosnian Serb army commander Ratko Mladic is "on the brink of death," the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals still refuses to release him for medical treatment on humanitarian grounds.

"General Mladic is on the brink of death. Whether he has one week or five weeks left does not matter. This has nothing to do with their verdicts or anyone's opinion. In General Mladic's case, this is about treating a person humanely. Frankly, I do not understand their approach, why they're acting like this. This is not the civilization we have been told about for so many years and decades," the Serbian president told reporters while visiting the construction site of a children's hospital in Belgrade.

On November 22, 2017, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia sentenced the former Bosnian Serb army commander to life in prison for genocide, crimes against humanity and violations of the laws and customs of war. He had evaded international justice for nearly 16 years before being arrested in Serbia in May 2011 and extradited to The Hague.

In 2025, the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals, the successor body to the former Yugoslavia tribunal, rejected Mladic's defense team's request for early release on health grounds. On April 15, Mladic's son Darko said that his father had suffered a stroke. On April 24, the general's defense team filed an urgent request for his release to receive treatment in Serbia due to his extremely serious condition. The mechanism denied Mladic's release on May 14.