Who is Ratko Mladic?
The arrest of Ratko Mladic – indicted for his role in the siege of Sarajevo and the Srebrenica massacre – is a significant moment in Balkan history. Channel 4 News looks at why.
Ratko Mladic was Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic‘s army chief during the Bosnian war, which lasted from 1992 to 1995.
When Bosnia declared independence from Yugoslavia, Karadzic led the Bosnian Serbs to their own republic in 1992.
Under Karadzic, who was arrested in 2008, the then General Mladic systematically removed Bosnia’s Muslims and Croats from Serb-held areas of Bosnia, giving the world the euphemism “ethnic cleansing”.
The notorious army chief was indicted by the UN war crimes tribunal in 1995 on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity – including the massacre of around 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys from the town of Srebenica. The Srebrenica massacre was the worst atrocity in Europe since world war two.
Mladic is also accused of ordering the siege of the Bosnian capital Sarajevo, which lasted 44 months. Some 10,000 people were killed in the siege – and 100,000 died overall in the Bosnian war.
Ratko Mladic – a timeline
Ratko Mladic, Colonel General, former Commander of the Main Staff of the Bosnian Serb Army (VRS) is charged with genocide, crimes against humanity and violations of the laws or customs of war against Bosnian Muslim, Bosnian Croat and other non-Serb civilians in Bosnia and Herzegovina during the 1992-1995 war.
1942
Ratko Mladic is born in the Bosnian village of Kalinovik in 1942.
He grows up under the Communist rule of Yugoslavia’s President Tito.
1991
As Yugoslavia begins to crumble, Mladic leads the Yugoslav army’s 9th Corps against Croatian forces at Knin and then takes command of the Yugoslav army’s Second Military District, based in Sarajevo.
29 Feb – 1 March 1992
Bosnia’s Muslims and Croats voted for independence in a referendum boycotted by Serbs.
6 April 1992
The European Union recognises Bosnia’s independence after the break-up of Yugoslavia. War breaks out in Bosnia and the siege of its capital, Sarajevo, begins. The siege lasts for 44 months.
May 1992
The Bosnian Serb Assembly votes to create an army and appoints Mladic as its commander. He is seen as a key instigator of the Sarajevo siege.
In pictures: war, genocide and Ratko Mladic. Click here for more.
11 July 1995
Around 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys are killed in the Srebrenica massacre after forces led by Mladic seize the UN “safe area” of Srebrenica in eastern Bosnia – the worst atrocity in Europe since world war two. Mladic is charged with planning, instigating and ordering the attack.
Read more on Ratko Mladic and the Srebrenica massacre
July 1995
The UN war crimes tribunal in the Hague indicts Karadzic and Mladic for genocide for the siege of Sarajevo. Four months later, a second indictment for genocide is issued for orchestrating the Srebrenica massacre.
August 1995
Nato begins air strikes against Bosnian Serb troops.
21 November 1995
Following Nato air strikes against Bosnian Serbs, Bosnian Muslim President Alija Izetbegovic, Croatian President Franjo Tudjman and Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic agree to a US-brokered peace deal in Dayton, Ohio.
14 December 1995
The three leaders sign the Dayton peace accords in Paris, paving the way for the arrival of a 66,000-strong Nato peacekeeping implementation force (Ifor) in Bosnia. The international community establishes a permanent presence in the country through the office of an international peace overseer.
1995
After the end of the Bosnian war, Mladic goes to Serbia and lives openly under the protection of President Milosevic until Milosevic’s arrest in 2001 (also on war crimes charges). He then goes into hiding – some suggest he has to his wartime bunker near Sarajevo. Other reports suggest he is in Montenegro or has remained in Serbia.
21 July 2008
Serbia announces that Radovan Karadzic had been arrested. Serbian officials say he had been living for several years under an assumed name in Belgrade, posing as an alternative healer, and show photographs of him unrecognisable behind long hair, thick glasses and a beard.
26 October 2009
The trial begins of Radovan Karadzic for war crimes and crimes against humanity at the Hague. His trial is as later suspended, and he remains in custody.
26 May 2011
Mladic is arrested in Serbia and is expected to be quickly transferred to the Hague court to face trial.