The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) is set to announce today its verdict on Ratko Mladic, "the butcher of the Balkans".
More than 20 years after the war in Yugoslavia (1992-1995), in which more than 100.000 people were killed and 2,2 million displaced, the 74-year-old former Bosnian Serb army chief whose presence is uncertain in court, still dividing Bosnia.
He is accused of being "the mastermind behind the murder of thousands of people" and has been charged with genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. However, he is still considered a hero in the Republika Srpska of Bosnia and Herzegovina, home to one million Serb Bosnians, where he is hailed as the "Serbian De Gaulle".
Along with his political alter ego, Radovan Karadzic, he is "the architect of the political cleansing" of a part of Bosnia in order to create a pure Serbian state, according to prosecutor Serge Brammertz.
The ICTY, set up in 1993 to try those convicted of war crimes during the conflict in the Balkans, will today issue "one of the most important decisions in its history" before closing its doors on December 31.
Prosecutors have demanded that Mladic be sentenced to life in prison "on the basis of the evidence presented". His defense, on the other hand, calls for his release: the former head of the Serb-Bosnian army has never pleaded guilty, although he has stated that he regrets "every innocent person killed on all sides, in all ethnic communities." of the former Yugoslavia. "
General Mladic himself may be the biggest absentee today, a day that will end two decades of conflict and the search for justice, while his defense has long sought in vain to postpone the historic decision on the grounds of his poor physical and mental health. . Having suffered three strokes, Mladic "could die at any moment," warned Dragan Ivetic's lawyer, who doubts even if his client is able to "understand" the decision.