Inside 160-square-foot UN prison cell where ‘Butcher of Bosnia’ Ratko Mladic awaits fate for war crimes and genocide
Each inmate gets a private cell, equipped with a single bed, shelves, a table and chair, toilet and washbasin. Even though a computer is provided, there is no internet access.
For the past six years, home for the man who once commanded fear across a swathe of Bosnia has been a small, spartan cell in a UN prison, close to the dunes and the stormy North Sea.
In the imposing jail, part of a Dutch prison complex in the seaside resort of Scheveningen, Ratko Mladic, accused of genocide as well as crimes against humanity and war crimes, has been free to walk his corridor during daylight hours.
But for two hours in the afternoon and every night, the man once dubbed “The Butcher of Bosnia” must return to his 160-square-foot cell to be locked in until the next morning.
Lawyers say failing health has now forced the 74-year-old to take to his single bed, spending hours tucked under blue sheets, as he awaits Wednesday’s verdict by UN war crimes judges on 11 charges for his role in the 1990s Balkans war.
The former Bosnian Serb military commander, who has denied all the charges, has had some notable company in the prison since he was captured in 2011 after 16 years on the run and handed over to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague.
