BELGRADE/AMSTERDAM, Aug 27 (Reuters) – Ratko Mladic, convicted of genocide for orchestrating the 1995 massacre of at least 8,000 Muslims in a U.N.-designated “safe area” of Bosnia, Europe’s worst atrocity since World War Two, died on Thursday, his lawyer said.
Here are some of the reactions to his death:
EMIR SULJAGIC, HEAD OF THE SREBRENICA MEMORIAL:
“Ratko Mladic is dead and there is not much to say. Nor does that fact change much. It doesn’t bring back the dead. It doesn’t clear mass graves. It does not change judgment. It does not turn the criminal into a historical figure.
“Now the hardest part of the job remains: not to let the truth, responsibility and memory die with him. Mladic’s death is another moment in which we must decide what we will remember and more importantly, what we will not allow to be erased.”
KADA HOTIC, 82, WHOSE 29-YEAR-OLD SON AND 56-YEAR-OLD HUSBAND WERE KILLED BY SERB FORCES IN 1995:
“I am grateful to the Tribunal because it sentenced Mladic to life and has not released him. Justice was served on the day he was sentenced to life. He died in disgrace, because he killed so many people.”
BOSNIAN SERB SEPARATIST LEADER MILORAD DODIK:
“It is a murder. He (Mladic) was respected by Serbian people. As a commander he stood to defend Serbs.”
SERBIAN ULTRA-NATIONALIST POLITICIAN VOJISLAV SESELJ:
“Mladic fought against those villains for a long time; they expected his death two or three years ago, but he did not give up … They killed him.”
RUSSIAN FOREIGN MINISTRY’S STATEMENT ON FACEBOOK:
“The Russian side has consistently pointed out that Mladic’s trial in The Hague and the conditions of his imprisonment were accompanied by disregard for his basic rights, including the right to health and adequate medical care.”
“The Mladic case, regardless of the underlying factual circumstances, was a blatant manifestation of the tribunal’s double standards and anti-Serb bias.”
U.N. SECRETARY-GENERAL ANTONIO GUTERRES, THROUGH HIS SPOKESPERSON, STEPHANE DUJARRIC:
“The Secretary-General stands in solidarity with the victims, survivors and their families who suffered the crimes for which Mr. Mladic was found guilty.
“These judicial findings are final, and the facts they conclusively established form part of the historical record. The Secretary-General reiterates his call on all those in position of power to refrain from denying the seriousness of the crimes that have been adjudicated.
“He (Guterres) strongly condemns any denial of the Srebrenica genocide as a historical event, and any actions that glorify those convicted of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide by international courts.”
(Reporting by Ivana Sekularac, Michelle Nichols and Aleksandar Vasovic; writing by Bart Meijer; Editing by Andrew Heavens and Chizu Nomiyama )
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