Mladic sentenced to life for genocide

Ratko Mladic, former commander of the Bosnian Serb army, reacts in court at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in the Hague, Netherlands in this still image taken from a video released by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), Nov 22, 2017.[Photo/Agencies]

THE HAGUE -- Ratko Mladic, former commander of the Bosnian Serb army, has been convicted to life imprisonment at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) here Wednesday.

After a long break, his defense team had asked for suspension or an immediate verdict for health reasons, but judge Alphons Orie denied that request. He continued reading out the verdict and Mladic became so angry that the judge ordered him to be removed from the courtroom.

Without him being present in the courtroom, the now 75-year-old Mladic was acquitted of the first count of genocide in several Bosnian municipalities. He was found guilty for the genocide related to the Srebrenica massacre, when around 7,000 to 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys were killed in Europe's worst atrocity since World War II.

In addition, Mladic was found guilty of five counts of crimes against humanity (persecutions, extermination, murder, deportation, inhumane acts) and four counts of violations of the laws or customs of war (murder, terror, unlawful attacks on civilians, taking of hostages) during the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina from May 1992 to late 1995.