Body of war criminal Mladić lies in state in Serbian capital ahead of funeral

Belgrade Turns Out for a Contested Farewell to Ratko Mladić

Earthguardiansonline.com – Thousands of mourners gathered before dawn on Monday at the modest Serbian Orthodox Church of St. Luke in Belgrade, where the coffin of Ratko Mladić lay draped in the Serbian tricolor beneath his military officer’s cap and saber. Men in fatigues stood guard on either side of the casket as the city prepared for what pro-government outlets described as a full military honors ceremony, with Patriarch Porfirije, head of the Serbian Orthodox Church, set to officiate the funeral service.

The spectacle unfolded against a backdrop of sharp diplomatic friction. Brussels had warned against allowing public homage to a man convicted of genocide — the first such finding on European soil since the Second World War — yet Belgrade proceeded with state-level arrangements regardless. The Serbian government dispatched a military aircraft the previous week to transport Mladić’s remains from The Hague, and soldiers carried the flag-wrapped coffin through the capital. A separate military commemoration had already taken place on Saturday at an official army venue.

Who Was Ratko Mladić, and Why Does His Death Divide Europe?

Mladić, the Bosnian Serb field commander who died at age 84 on August 27 while serving a life sentence in a Dutch detention facility, was found guilty in 2017 of orchestrating the 1995 massacre of more than 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys at Srebrenica. The tribunal also convicted him of crimes tied to the yearslong siege of Sarajevo, the establishment of concentration camps holding non-Serb civilians and captured soldiers, and other atrocities committed by his forces during the Bosnian war of 1992 to 1995. That conflict, which erupted after the collapse of the former Yugoslav federation, left more than 100,000 people dead and displaced over one million before a United States-brokered peace deal halted the fighting in 1995.

Srebrenica had been designated a United Nations “safe haven” for Bosniaks — the Bosnian Muslim community. Serbian forces overran the enclave, compelled men and boys to strip, executed them, and bulldozed their bodies into mass graves. Serbia to this day declines to label the event genocide, preferring the term “horrific crime,” a distinction that continues to rankle in Sarajevo and across Western capitals.

Belgrade’s Defiant Posture and the EU Question

Serbia, a candidate country seeking European Union membership, has drawn sustained criticism for the scale of honors accorded to Mladić following his death. Marta Kos, the bloc’s enlargement commissioner, canceled a scheduled visit to Belgrade in protest. She argued that

“the glorification surrounding his death is incompatible with the values on which the EU path is built.”

Other European officials, regional leaders, and families of wartime victims joined the chorus of condemnation. Yet the Serbian government has shown no sign of retreating. Populist President Aleksandar Vucic, a former extreme nationalist who backed Serbia’s expansionist agenda during the war, framed the funeral as

“an emotional outpouring” that “has nothing to do with whether Vucic allowed something or not.”

Vucic, who is not expected to attend the service himself, has previously accused Kos of “lying.” He has intensified his anti-Western rhetoric in the run-up to an early parliamentary election anticipated next month, telling audiences that

“we (Serbs) have been persecuted and harassed for 30, 40 years … always guilty whatever happens.”

He added that

“people just won’t take it any more.”

The EU accession process has already stalled, weighed down by democratic backsliding at home and Vucic’s refusal to align with international sanctions imposed on Russia over its invasion of Ukraine. The Mladić funeral risks deepening that freeze further, as Brussels and partner states interpret the state honors as a signal that Belgrade prioritizes nationalist sentiment over the rule-of-law commitments underpinning its candidacy.

A Hero to Many, a War Criminal to Others

For a substantial segment of the Serbian public, Mladić remains a figure of pride. Since his death, nationalist admirers have organized candlelit vigils, painted a series of murals bearing his likeness across Belgrade’s streets, and ignited flares in his name. On Sunday evening, soccer supporters unfurled a massive banner depicting Mladić at a match in the capital and chanted his name through the stands.

Milan Dobric, a mourner who traveled from Kosovo specifically for the funeral, told onlookers:

“Mladić was a man who gave everything in his life for the Serbian people. I am glad that this morning people are coming to pay special respect.”

The divide between that sentiment and the verdicts of international tribunals encapsulates a broader tension in the Balkans: how a society reconciles collective memory of wartime sacrifice with accountability for atrocities. Serbia’s decision to bury another convicted war criminal last year — former army chief of staff Nebojsa Pavkovic, interred with full military honors at a cemetery reserved for distinguished individuals — suggests the pattern is institutional rather than incidental.

As Patriarch Porfirije leads the service and the coffin is carried from St. Luke’s, the funeral will serve simultaneously as a religious rite, a military ceremony, and a political statement. For Belgrade’s leadership, it reaffirms a narrative of national grievance. For Sarajevo, for the families of Srebrenica’s victims, and for European institutions watching from a distance, it underscores how far the continent still has to travel before the lessons of the 1990s are fully absorbed.