Serbia plans state and military funeral honors for convicted war criminal Ratko Mladić

Government honors and funeral arrangements

The Serbian government announced that former Bosnian Serb military commander Ratko Mladić will receive military and state honors following his death in detention. Serbian Justice Minister Nenad Vujić announced the decision on Friday, 28 August 2026, during an interview with radio station K1, stating that the former general would receive all official honors to which he has a claim. In a separate interview with the Bosnian Serb television station ATV, Vujić explained that the government would follow established protocol regarding military ranks.

General Mladić is a general, and the protocol is known.

Serbian media outlets interpret the official statements as confirmation that the government under President Aleksandar Vučić intends to organize a full state ceremony. Mladić is expected to be buried at the Topčider cemetery in Belgrade, in accordance with his stated wish to lie next to his daughter Ana, who died by suicide in 1994 at age 23. Serbian officials have noted that the exact schedule for the funeral remains pending while logistical and diplomatic arrangements proceed.

Medical disputes and final days in The Hague

Mladić died on Thursday, 27 August 2026, in a hospital in The Hague, where he was serving a life sentence under United Nations custody. He had suffered from severe health problems for years, experiencing multiple strokes in the period leading up to his death. His family and Serbian officials had repeatedly petitioned the court to allow his transfer to a military hospital in Belgrade for medical treatment.

The International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals (IRMCT), the body managing the remaining cases of the United Nations tribunals, consistently denied those transfer requests. Several days prior to his father's death, Darko Mladić publicly characterized the tribunal's refusal to release him for treatment as a "silent murder". The timing for Dutch authorities to release the body to Serbia remains unconfirmed, though Justice Minister Vujić stated that Serbian representatives are prepared to travel to The Hague immediately once the next legal steps are finalized.

Military command and international convictions

Mladić served as the chief of staff of the Bosnian Serb army during the 1992–1995 Bosnian War. He directed military operations across Bosnia, including the July 1995 assault on the United Nations safe zone in Srebrenica. Troops under his command murdered more than 8,000 Muslim men and teenage boys, subsequently burying the bodies in mass graves and later reburying many remains across different sites to conceal the executions.

Following the end of the conflict in 1995, Mladić remained a fugitive for nearly 16 years. Serbian security forces arrested him on Serbian territory in 2011, leading to his extradition to The Hague. The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) conducted his trial, and in 2017 judges found him guilty of genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity, sentencing him to life imprisonment.