War criminal Mladic close to death, say lawyers asking judge for jail release

Lawyers acting for convicted Bosnian Serb war criminal Ratko Mladic are awaiting a decision by a UN court on their bid to release him from jail in The Hague on the grounds he is near the end of his life.

Mladic, 84, was jailed for life in 2017 for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity during the wars in the former Yugoslavia between 1992 and 1995. The sentence for the man known as the "Butcher of Bosnia" was upheld on appeal in 2021.

In a detailed submission to the court on Friday, his lawyers said Mladic had already been bedbound or in a wheelchair for a long time.

But they said he had then suffered a suspected stroke during a call with his son that left him almost unable to speak.

They said two doctors had assessed his condition as serious and the "risk of imminent death is high", and the lawyers have called for his immediate provisional or conditional release to a hospital or hospice where the Serbian language is spoken.

It is implicit that Mladic's defence team are seeking his return home, and Serbian Justice Minister Nenad Vujic has made clear that his government is prepared to provide guarantees to the court if they release him.

Judge Graciela Gatti Santana has asked for an independent health assessment, which was due to deliver its findings on Friday.

Mladic commanded Bosnian Serb forces in the 1990s against the Bosnian Croat and Bosniak (Bosnian Muslim) armies, during a war in which his troops committed "ethnic cleansing" in Bosnia-Herzegovina, besieged the main city of Sarajevo with the deaths of more than 10,000 people, and carried out the massacre of 8,000 men and boys at Srebrenica.

Mladic disappeared in 1995 and was only tracked down in rural Serbia in 2011 after 16 years on the run. He went on trial at The Hague in 2012 and was convicted in 2017.

He has been held at a United Nations detention facility since 2011 but his lawyers argue that the unit and prison hospital are not sufficient to provide care for him, and that keeping him in detention constitutes "cruel, inhumane punishment" and no longer serves any purpose.

Bosnian groups representing victims and survivors strongly oppose the former Bosnian Serb commander's release from jail, seeing it as a "legal tactic" rather than a humanitarian request. They have warned the UN court that his defence team have made similar repeated attempts for years.

His lawyers sought his release in July 2025 but that was turned down, then in November 2025 they asked unsuccessfully for a temporary release for him to attend a memorial service for a member of his family,

Mladic's son Darko told Serbian media there had been no change in his father's health and he was planning to visit him in the prison hospital next week.