Final Verdict in Mladic Trial Set for Early June

The final verdict in the trial of Ratko Mladic, aged 79, is scheduled for 3 pm on Tuesday, June 8, and will be handed down by judges Prisca Matima Nyambe, Aminatta Lois Runeni N'gum, Seymour Panton, Elizabeth Ibanda-Nahamya and newly appointed judge Mustapha El Baaj.

Mladic's trial started before the Hague war crimes court, ICTY, in 2012. The court sentenced him to life imprisonment in November 2017, finding him guilty of genocide of Bosniaks from the eastern town of Srebrenica in 1995, the persecution of Bosniaks and Croats throughout Bosnia, terrorising the population of Sarajevo during the siege of the city, and taking UN peacekeepers hostage.

The defence appealed the verdict in August this year, calling for an acquittal on all counts, a retrial or a reduced sentence for Mladic.

The prosecution also appealed, calling for Mladic to be found guilty of genocide in five other municipalities in 1992.

The presentation of appeals took place after being postponed twice. The first was due to Mladic's surgery and the second due to the coronavirus, which made it difficult for some judges to come to The Hague, as well as the fact that Mladic belonged to "a high-risk group", given his medical condition and age.

The trial began in 2012.

In February this year, Carmel Agius, president of the MITC, the Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals, successor to the ICTY,  appointed new judge Mustapha El Baaj to the Appeals Chamber that will deliver the final verdict after one of the chamber members passed away.

Born in 1942, Mladic became Chief of the General Staff of the Bosnian Serb army, VRS, in the 1992-5 war in Bosnia. Indicted soon after the war for various crimes, he evaded justice for 16 years before his arrest in Serbia...