Serbian President Vucic Says UN Court ‘Wanted Mladic to Die Behind Bars’

Serbian President Vucic Says UN Court ‘Wanted Mladic to Die Behind Bars’ This post is also available in this language: Bos/Hrv/Srp Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said on Friday that “The Hague wanted [Ratko] Mladic to die behind bars, not in a hospital” because the UN court declined to release the former Bosnian Serb military chief for palliative care in Belgrade ahead of his death. “We have seen that they did not want to allow the general to die in Serbia, where he wanted to die. That is uncivilised behaviour, behaviour without precedent and without justification,” Vucic said in his first public statement after the death of Mladic on Thursday. He added that he had been in close contact with Mladic’s family, and that Serbia would ensure that the former Bosnian Serb military leader’s funeral would be “done in a dignified and proper manner”. On Thursday, Serbia’s Justice Minister Nenad Vujic said that Mladic would be buried with state honours in Serbia. Vucic introduced a note of doubt, however, saying that everything published in the press had been inaccurate. Vucic also claimed that “the West” had only found Serbs guilty of war crimes from the 1990s. “Do I believe in justice from The Hague? I never have, and I still do not,” he said. “All those who took part in crimes against Serbs in the former Yugoslavia were always either acquitted or given token sentences, only for those decisions to later be changed on appeal and the defendants ultimately released,” he added. Vucic’s statement, slamming the Hague court, echoes Thursday’s reactions to Mladic’s death in pro-government media, among members of the governing Serbian Progressive Party, from hardline nationalist politicians Vojislav Seselj and Aleksandar Vulin and from Bosnian Serb political leader Milorad Dodik. Serbia is an EU candidate state, and on Friday, the European Commission told Radio Free Europe that it was up to the Belgrade authorities to decide what role they would play in the funeral of convicted war criminal Ratko Mladic. However, the Commission warned: “The European Commission considers any glorification of war criminals to be contrary to the most fundamental European values and to have no place either in the EU or in countries that are candidates for EU membership.”