Thousands Attend Mladic Funeral in Belgrade Despite EU Criticism
- On Monday, Sept. 7, 2026, the body of Bosnian Serb commander Ratko Mladic lay in state at the St. Luke Church in Belgrade as thousands of mourners gathered to honor the convicted war criminal who died last week.
- Mladic died at 84 on Aug. 27 while serving a life sentence for genocide, including orchestrating the 1995 massacre of more than 8,000 Muslims in Srebrenica and the siege of Sarajevo during the Bosnian war.
- Despite international condemnation, the Serbian government sent a plane to bring Mladic's remains to Belgrade, with soldiers carrying the flag-draped coffin as Patriarch Porfirije, head of the Serbian Orthodox Church, prepared to lead the funeral with full military honors.
- European Union enlargement commissioner Marta Kos canceled a planned visit to protest the glorification, while President Aleksandar Vucic dismissed the criticism, accusing Kos of "lying" amid rising tensions.
- Vucic, who is not attending the funeral, has stepped up anti-Western rhetoric ahead of a high-stakes early parliamentary election expected next month as Serbia's European Union bid remains stalled due to democratic backsliding.
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359 Articles
After the Mass in honor of the so-called "Bio butcher", thousands of people accompanied the coffin on their way to the cemetery, located on the outskirts of Belgrade.
Convicted war criminal Ratko Mladić has been buried in Serbia. Thousands of people said goodbye to him. It was one of the largest public funerals in Serbia in decades.
The President of Serbia had previously announced a larger turnout of people, which has met with criticism from the EU.
Serbia buried with military honours Mladic, the 'Bosnia butcher' and responsible for the greatest slaughter in Europe since World War II With a military honor guard and blessed by the patriarch of the Serbian Orthodox Church. The corpse of General Ratko Mladic, 84 years old in a prison in The Hague, obtained the proper recognition of a national hero upon his return to his country. A country that aspires in theory to join the European Union one d…
Funeral of convicted war criminal Mladic draws thousands, opens old wounds
Crowds carrying Serbian flags and pictures of Mladic wearing a traditional Serbian military cap gathered outside the church in a Belgrade suburb where the head of the country’s Orthodox church, Serbian Patriarch Porfirije, presided over the service
Die Presse
www.kleinezeitung.atFormer General Ratko Mladić was buried in Belgrade with military honours, but in Serbia too the spirits are separated from the convicted war criminal.
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