Who is Ratko Mladic? Former Bosnian Serb general dubbed the Butcher of Bosnia found guilty of genocide
His leadership during the country's 1990s conflict was blamed for the worst atrocities in Europe since World War II
DUBBED the "Butcher of Bosnia", Ratko Mladic has been jailed for life by a UN court after being found guilty of genocide and crimes against humanity.
The 74-year-old former Bosnian Serb's brutish leadership during the country's 1990s conflict was blamed for the worst atrocities in Europe since World War II.
Who is Ratko Mladic?
Born on March 12, 1942 at Bozinovici in eastern Bosnia, Mladic was named Ratko, a diminutive of a Serb name meaning war and peace, usually given to a male baby during wars, his biographer Ljiljana Bulatovic wrote.
His life was quickly struck by bloodshed and tragedy when aged two, his father was killed by the Ustasha, Croatia's World War II fascist regime.
In June 1991, as Yugoslavia crumbled and war broke out in Croatia, Mladic, then a colonel in the Yugoslav National Army, was given the task of organising the Serb-dominated army in Croatia.
The following May, Mladic, by now a general, was made commander of the Bosnian Serb forces and fought to link Serb-held lands in eastern and western Bosnia.
Former Yugoslav army spokesman Ljubodrag Stojadinovic described Mladic as "narcissistic, conceited, vain and arrogant," while a former colonel, Gaja Petkovic, said he was a "cynic and a sadist".
He has been dogged by health problems while in detention.
Mladic's daughter Ana, unable to cope with the burden of accusations of his wartime crimes, committed suicide in Belgrade in 1994 aged 23, reportedly with her father's favourite pistol.
Those close to the general were reported as saying her suicide pushed him over the edge.
What was Mladic's role in the bloody 1992-95 Bosnian conflict?
Mladic was accused of setting in motion Europe's worst atrocity since the Nazi era, with his troops rounding up and killing 8,000 Muslim men and boys in the UN-protected enclave of Srebrenica.
In under-siege Sarajevo, the ferocious Mladic refused to bow to Western demands to withdraw his heavy weapons and it took the combined might of NATO warplanes and cruise missiles to blow apart his military advantage in September 1995.
He was indicted by the Hague-based International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in July 1995, a few months before the war ended, on charges of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Mladic is also accused of being the architect of the bloody 44-month siege of the Bosnian capital Sarajevo, which claimed an estimated 10,000 lives, according to the UN war crimes indictment against him.
After the conflict, Mladic became too much of a liability and was sacked by the Bosnian Serb government in 1997.
For a long time he holed up in his former main command bunker, calmly defying NATO attempts to arrest him before moving to the Serbian capital Belgrade in 2000.
At first he lived openly, but soon went underground as his popularity waned amongst Serbian politicians, increasingly concerned that failure to transfer him to the ICTY would further delay the country's accession to the European Union.
Mladic was finally arrested in May 2011 at a relative's house in northern Serbia and transferred to the Hague to stand trial.
What is Mladic charged with?
The UN’s Yugoslav war crimes tribunal convicted on of genocide and crimes against humanity, and sentenced him to life in prison for atrocities
Mladic was found guilty of commanding forces responsible for crimes including the worst atrocities of Bosnia's 1992-1995 war.
His crimes include the deadly three-year siege of the Bosnian capital, Sarajevo, and the 1995 massacre of some 8,000 Muslim men and boys in the eastern enclave of Srebrenica.
The slaughter in Srebrenica was Europe's worst mass killing since World War II.
A three-judge panel at the court formally known as the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia convicted Mladic of 10 of 11 counts in a dramatic climax.
Presiding Judge Alphons Orie read out the judgment on November 22, after ordering Mladic out of the courtroom for the final verdict over an angry outburst.
Mothers of Srebrenica's victims clapped when the convictions were read out.
Mladic's son Darko said: "I'm not surprised. The court was totally biased from the start."
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Despite ailing health, Mladic looked relaxed, greeting lawyers and giving a thumbs-up to photographers in court.
He nodded regularly as presiding Judge Alphons Orie read out descriptions of atrocities by Bosnian Serb forces, one by one.
Then Mladic's lawyer asked for a delay because the former general was suffering high blood pressure.
The judge refused, and Mladic burst out with criticism and was ordered to leave the room.
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