2026年8月27日 美国东部时间上午10:31 / 美联社
塞尔维亚国家广播电视台RTS以及波斯尼亚塞族官方电视台报道，曾在上世纪90年代波斯尼亚战争中指挥暴行的波斯尼亚塞族将军拉特科·姆拉迪奇已在狱中去世，享年84岁。
报道称，姆拉迪奇在荷兰海牙的联合国监狱医院去世。姆拉迪奇的一名亲属因事件敏感性要求匿名，向美联社证实了相关报道，并表示姆拉迪奇的儿子达尔科·姆拉迪奇正在前往海牙的途中。
联合国法庭官员在一份声明中告诉美联社，他们无法立即证实姆拉迪奇的死讯。
联合国针对上世纪90年代南斯拉夫战争期间战争罪行的法庭在2017年判处姆拉迪终身监禁，这被视为为受害者伸张正义的关键一步。他在逃亡多年后，于2011年被拘留。
这位冷酷无情、蓝眼睛的前共产主义军官后来成为民族主义军阀，是那场造成10万多人死亡、100多万人流离失所的冲突中最臭名昭著的人物之一。他曾命令部队“烧焦穆斯林的大脑”，并吹嘘自己是“塞尔维亚的上帝”。
2021年6月，在荷兰海牙，拉特科·姆拉迪奇在上诉其种族灭绝定罪判决时抵达法庭。杰里·兰彭/ANP/法新社 via 盖蒂图片社
1992年波斯尼亚种族战争爆发后，姆拉迪奇出任波斯尼亚塞族部队指挥官，控制了该国大片领土，以建立一个塞族微型国家。
在姆拉迪奇指挥下的塞族军队包围了首都萨拉热窝及其他城市和村庄，为被拘留的非塞族平民和敌方士兵设立了集中营，并系统性地屠杀囚犯。
在萨拉热窝，塞族军队切断了城市的对外联络，同时用狙击手射杀平民。1995年，姆拉迪奇的部队在斯雷布雷尼察屠杀了8000多名穆斯林男性和男孩——这是二战后欧洲首例被认定的种族灭绝事件。
但姆拉迪奇本人以及他在塞族中的支持者从未忏悔。许多人将他视为为首个泛塞尔维亚国家而战的爱国者。姆拉迪奇在审判期间态度桀骜不驯，在被判处终身监禁时曾对法官大吼大叫。
姆拉迪奇于1942年3月12日出生在萨拉热窝以南40公里（25英里）山区的波斯尼亚小村庄博济诺维奇。和南斯拉夫冲突中的其他主角一样，他从家族在二战中的遭遇中吸收了民族主义情绪——他的父亲被克罗地亚人杀害。
作为一名共产主义时代的军官，南斯拉夫解体引发战争时，姆拉迪奇站在了塞族一边。姆拉迪奇最初领导了克罗地亚的塞族起义，之后接管了由塞尔维亚及当时的总统斯洛博丹·米洛舍维奇支持的波斯尼亚塞族军队。米洛舍维奇同样于2006年在海牙法庭受审期间死于羁押中。
姆拉迪奇以痴迷于本国历史著称。他将波斯尼亚战争视为对塞尔维亚曾被奥斯曼帝国占领500年的复仇机会。他经常将波斯尼亚穆斯林称为土耳其人，并在1995年部队攻占联合国保护飞地斯雷布雷尼察后吹嘘复仇成功。
凭借塞族在火力上的优势以及国际社会的漠视，姆拉迪奇确信自己会最终获胜。
“时机已到……向该地区的土耳其人复仇，”姆拉迪奇在接管斯雷布雷尼察后说道。
作为穆斯林的联合国“安全区”，斯雷布雷尼察最终被塞族军队攻占，士兵们将男性和男孩分开，强迫他们脱衣，随后将其杀害，并将尸体埋入集体坟墓，这场残暴的暴行持续了一周多。
斯雷布雷尼察的幸存者表示，有一个画面永远烙印在他们的脑海中：姆拉迪奇向在城镇广场被集中起来的穆斯林儿童分发糖果，并安慰他们一切都会好起来——甚至还拍了拍其中一个孩子的头。
姆拉迪奇深信自己军队的实力，他曾对士兵们说：“我给出的担保，就如同上帝给出的一样。”为了让自己的直升机顺利降落，他会对空中交通管制员说：“我是拉特科·姆拉迪奇——塞尔维亚的上帝。”
萨拉热窝民众至今仍记得他在1992年初对炮击波斯尼亚首都的塞族枪手下达的命令。他通过军用无线电系统发布指令，甚至懒得加密信号，萨拉热窝警方截获并录制了这些通话。
“转向韦莱西奇，那里没有塞族人，”萨拉热窝民众能听到姆拉迪奇命令炮兵轰击萨拉热窝郊区。
“烧焦他们的大脑，”他对枪手们说。
1993年5月17日，波斯尼亚塞族指挥官、将军拉特科·姆拉迪奇在萨拉热窝机场的联合国旗帜旁。杰罗姆·德莱/美联社
面对联合国法庭的种族灭绝起诉书，姆拉迪奇于1996年开始了逃亡生涯，藏身于波斯尼亚东部的汉皮耶克军事基地——该基地是为前南斯拉夫共产主义领导人约瑟普·布罗兹·铁托修建的，设计可抵御核攻击。
姆拉迪奇与妻子博萨一起过着被迫的居家生活，靠养蜂和放羊打发时间。据说他的23只山羊都以他厌恶的外国政要名字命名，比如前美国国务卿马德琳·奥尔布赖特。
在安保人员的包围下，他偶尔会走出茂密的松林，参加波斯尼亚塞族军队周年纪念、圣维特节等活动。圣维特节是纪念1389年塞族在科索沃被土耳其击败的宗教节日。
1990年代末，他在波斯尼亚的行踪越来越容易被追踪，姆拉迪奇便举家搬到了塞尔维亚首都贝尔格莱德的一处郊区别墅。
在贝尔格莱德，有人看到他参加了儿子的婚礼。他会出现在足球比赛现场，在豪华餐厅用餐，常去精英咖啡馆，拒绝接受采访，被拍照时则带着戏谑的微笑。
2000年10月米洛舍维奇被赶下台后，南斯拉夫新的亲民主当局暗示可能将姆拉迪奇移交法庭，小报报道称他已离开贝尔格莱德前往波斯尼亚。
但姆拉迪奇一如往常，驳斥了这些谣言以及其他称他在贝尔格莱德身患绝症的说法。2002年彻底隐藏起来之前，他多次公开露面，有时带着保镖，有时独自驾车，开着一辆方头的尤戈牌汽车在首都街头行驶。
他于2008年完全从公众视野中消失，最终于2011年5月在贝尔格莱德附近的一个村庄被捕，当时他藏身于一名亲属的普通住宅中。
在海牙的法庭上，这位看起来虚弱的老人与战争时期的姆拉迪奇形象相去甚远，但他毫无悔意的本性和桀骜不驯的态度丝毫未改。
“你所说的一切都是纯粹的谎言。可耻！”当联合国法官宣布定罪判决时，他对他们大吼道。
姆拉迪奇2011年被捕时健康状况就已不佳，据信他在逃亡期间多次中风，在羁押期间也曾多次住院治疗。
Ratko Mladic, so-called “Butcher of Bosnia,” convicted of genocide, dies in prison at 84
August 27, 2026 10:31 AM EDT / AP
Ratko Mladic, the Bosnian Serb general who oversaw atrocities in Bosnia in the 1990s, has died in prison at age 84, the Serbian state RTS television and the official Bosnian Serb television reported.
The reports said 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.
U.N. court officials told the AP in a statement that they could not immediately confirm Mladic’s death.
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 most notorious figures of the conflict that left more than 100,000 people dead and over 1 million homeless. He commanded his troops to “scorch the brains” of the Bosnian Muslims and boasted of being a “Serbian God.”
Ratko Mladic arrives in court as he appeals his genocide conviction in June 2021, at The Hague in the Netherlands. Jerry Lampen/ANP/AFP via Getty Images
When the ethnic war in Bosnia started in 1992, Mladic became the commander of the Bosnian Serb troops and took control of large swaths of the country to form a Serb mini-state.
Serbs under Mladic’s control laid siege to the capital, Sarajevo, and other cities and villages, established concentration camps for detained non-Serb civilians and enemy soldiers, and systematically killed prisoners.
In Sarajevo, Serb troops kept the city isolated while killing civilians with snipers. In 1995, Mladic’s troops slaughtered more than 8,000 Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica — the only post-World War II case of genocide in Europe.
But Mladic himself and his admirers among the Serbs have never repented. He was seen by many as a patriot fighting for the first pan-Serbian state. Defiant, Mladic acted bullishly during his trial and yelled at the judges when sentenced to life in prison.
Mladic was born March 12, 1942, in the tiny Bosnian village of Bozinovici, in the hills 40 kilometers (25 miles) south of Sarajevo. Like other protagonists in the Yugoslav conflict, he imbibed nationalism from his family’s fate in World War II — his own father was killed by Croats.
A communist-era officer, Mladic sided with the Serbs as Yugoslavia disintegrated in the war. Mladic first led a Serb insurgency in Croatia before taking over the Bosnian Serb army that was backed by Serbia and then-President Slobodan Milosevic, who also died in the custody of the Hague court in 2006 while on trial for genocide.
Mladic was known for his obsession with his nation’s history. He saw Bosnia’s war as a chance for revenge against the onetime 500-year-long Ottoman occupation of Serbia. He often referred to Bosnia’s Muslims as Turks and boasted of revenge when his troops overran the protected U.N. enclave of Srebrenica in 1995.
Carried away by Serb dominance in firepower and international ignorance, Mladic was convinced of his final victory.
“The time has come … for revenge against Turks in these regions,” Mladic said after taking over Srebrenica.
A U.N. “safe haven” for Muslims, Srebrenica ended up overrun by Serbs who separated the men and boys, forced them to strip, killed them and bulldozed their bodies into mass graves in a brutal rampage that lasted for over a week.
The Srebrenica survivors said one image forever will be imprinted in their minds: Mladic handing out candy to Muslim children who had been rounded up on the town’s square and reassuring them that everything would be all right — even patting one child on the head.
Convinced of the power of his army, he used to tell his soldiers: “When I give you guarantees, it’s as if they are given by God.” To clear the way for his helicopter to land, he would tell air traffic controllers: “Here speaks Ratko Mladic — The Serbian God.”
Sarajevans still remember his commands to the Serb gunmen pounding the Bosnian capital in early 1992. He issued his orders through a military radio system, not bothering to scramble the signal, which was picked up and taped by the Sarajevo police.
“Turn toward Velesici, there are no Serbs there,” Sarajevans could hear Mladic ordering his artillery to pound the Sarajevo suburb.
“Scorch their brains,” he told his gunmen.
Bosnian Serb commander Gen. Ratko Mladic near a United Nations flag at Sarajevo Airport on May 17, 1993. Jerome Delay/AP
Faced with the U.N. tribunal’s genocide indictment, Mladic in 1996 began his fugitive years in Han Pijesak, a military compound in eastern Bosnia built for former Yugoslav communist leader Josip Broz Tito and designed to withstand a nuclear attack.
With his wife, Bosa, Mladic settled down to imposed domesticity, passing the time caring for bees and goats. His 23 goats reputedly bore the names of foreign dignitaries he despised, such as Madeleine Albright, the former U.S. secretary of state.
Surrounded by security guards, he occasionally ventured out of the dense pine forest to mark events such as the anniversary of the Bosnian Serb army and St. Vitus Day, a religious festival marking the 1389 Serb defeat by the Turks at Kosovo.
When in the late 1990s his trail grew too hot in Bosnia, Mladic moved with family into a suburban villa in the Serbian capital, Belgrade.
In Belgrade, he was seen attending his son’s wedding. He showed up at soccer games, dined in plush restaurants and frequented elite cafes, refusing to give interviews and smiling quizzically when photographed.
When Milosevic was ousted from power in October 2000, and Yugoslavia’s new pro-democracy authorities signaled they might hand Mladic over to the tribunal, tabloids reported that he had left Belgrade for Bosnia.
But true to his style, Mladic countered those rumors and others that said he was terminally ill in Belgrade. Before going underground in 2002, he was repeatedly seen in public, sometimes with his guards and sometimes alone, driving a boxy Yugo car on the streets of the capital.
He completely disappeared from public view in 2008 and was finally arrested in May 2011 in a village near Belgrade where he was hiding in a relative’s modest house.
In court in The Hague, a frail-looking old man was far from an image of Mladic from the war days. But his unrepentant nature and defiance were intact.
“Everything you said is pure lies. Shame on you!” he yelled at the U.N. judges when they handed down the conviction.
Already in poor health upon arrest in 2011, Mladic is believed to have suffered multiple strokes during his years on the run and was hospitalized on several occasions while in custody.
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