Ratko Mladic, ex-Bosnian Serb warlord who oversaw atrocities, dies in prison at 84

Ratko Mladic, the bullish Bosnian Serb general whose forces rained shells and snipers’ bullets on Sarajevo and carried out the worst massacre in Europe since World War II, has died while serving a life sentence for his crimes, U.N. officials said. He was 84.

U.N. court officials said that Mladic died in a U.N. prison hospital in The Hague, Netherlands. A family member of Mladic, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation, confirmed the reports for the AP and said Mladic’s son, Darko Mladic, was on the way to The Hague.

The U.N. tribunal for war crimes committed during the wars in Yugoslavia in the 1990s sentenced Mladic to life in prison in 2017 in what was considered a key step toward bringing justice to the victims. He had been in custody since 2011 after many years on the run.

The ruthless, blue-eyed former communist officer-turned nationalist warlord was one of the