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Former Bosnian Serb commander Ratko Mladic has been jailed for life for genocide and other
atrocities in the 1990s Bosnian war.
Known as the "Butcher of Bosnia", Mladic led forces during the massacre of Bosnian
Muslims (Bosniaks) in Srebrenica and the siege of Sarajevo.
Mladic, 74, was not in court when the sentence was read out. He had been removed for
shouting at the judges.
The outburst came after the judges rejected a request by his team to halt the proceedings
because of Mladic's high blood pressure.
Mladic has denied all the charges and his lawyer said he would appeal.
It found that Mladic "significantly contributed" to the genocide in Srebrenica in 1995, where
more than 7,000 Bosniak men and boys were murdered, the worst atrocity in Europe since
World War Two.
He was cleared of a second count of genocide in other municipalities. The other charges
included war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Media caption"The soil here is soaked with blood" - survivor Mevludin Oric
Presiding judge Alphons Orie read out many crimes committed by troops under Mladic's
command, including:
He was finally tracked down and arrested at a cousin's house in rural northern Serbia in 2011
after 16 years on the run.
Mladic's days in the Scheveningen prison in The Hague have been taken up with playing
chess, reading history books, watching TV and exercise.
His usual chess rival is former Bosnian Serb President Radovan Karadzic, who was also
convicted of genocide and war crimes in the Bosnian war in 2016.
The group Mothers of Srebrenica said it was partially satisfied, and some relatives said
Mladic deserved a harsher sentence.
Image copyright Reuters Image caption Victims and their relatives watched the verdict in a
memorial centre near Srebrenica
The BBC's Anna Holligan in The Hague says victims filed out of the courtroom in victorious
mood into the sunshine.
Fikret Alic, the man whose skeletal image on the front cover of Time magazine shocked the
world in 1992, smiled as he tucked into a cheese sandwich.
He said he hoped Mladic's behaviour would mean the Serb general would go down in history
as a coward who was not brave enough to face up to his own crimes.
Image copyright AFP Image caption A relative mourns one of the Srebrenica massacre
victims
"The verdict won't make any changes," said Resad Trbonja, a native of Sarajevo who became
a teenage soldier to defend the city during the siege, that left more than 10,000 people dead.
"What we need to fight now is the legacy of the war - we're still living it."
Chief prosecutor Serge Brammertz said the verdict was not a judgement on the Serbian people
and that Mladic's guilt was his alone.
UN human rights chief Zeid Ra'ad al-Hussein called Mladic the "epitome of evil" and said his
prosecution was "the epitome of what international justice is all about".
The Serbs attacked from the south, prompting thousands of Bosniak civilians and fighters to
flee north to Srebrenica. As the Serb advance continued, refugees fled north to the main Dutch
base in Potocari.
Gen Mladic summoned the Dutch commander, Col Thom Karremans, and demanded that the
Bosniaks disarm to save their lives.
On 12 July, some 15,000 Bosniak men of military age broke out of the enclave. They were
shelled as they fled through the mountains. Some were also killed after surrendering.
Buses then deported an estimated 23,000 women and children to Bosniak territory, while the
Serbs separated out all males from age 12 to 77.
On 13 July the first killings of unarmed Bosniaks took place in the nearby village of Kravica.
Over four days, up to 8,000 Bosniak men and boys were murdered by Bosnian Serbs at sites
around Srebrenica.
Civilians in the Bosnian capital endured a brutal siege during 1992-1995 at the hands of
Bosnian Serb forces, who fired down into the city from the surrounding hills. The death toll
was more than 10,000.
It was part of what prosecutors call a Serb "criminal enterprise" to spread terror among
Bosniaks and Croats, and to drive them from areas claimed as Serb territory.
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