CNN journalist Christiane Amanpour has sharply condemned former Bosnian Serb military commander Ratko Mladić following news of his death, describing him as “one of the most brutal killers in the world” and recalling the atrocities committed during the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
“Jedan od najbrutalnijih ubica na svetu konačno je mrtav,” Amanpour wrote on X, adding that the former Bosnian Serb general had lived to the age of 84 — far longer than many of his victims.
Amanpour, who covered the Bosnian war as a CNN correspondent during the 1990s, specifically highlighted the Srebrenica genocide and the killing of thousands of Bosniak men and boys by Bosnian Serb forces under Mladić’s command.
She described the victims of Srebrenica as Mladić’s “permanent shame” and emphasized that he was ultimately brought before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, where he was convicted of genocide and other serious crimes.
“I am proud of the work we journalists did in the 1990s, documenting his crimes against humanity so that he would finally be held accountable,” Amanpour said.
Amanpour reported extensively from Bosnia and Herzegovina during the war and interviewed Mladić during her coverage of the conflict.
Mladić died on Thursday at the UN detention facility in The Hague at the age of 84.
In 2017, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia sentenced him to life imprisonment for genocide, crimes against humanity and other war crimes committed during the 1992–1995 Bosnian war.
The Hague Mechanism subsequently rejected repeated requests for his temporary release to receive medical treatment in Serbia.
Amanpour’s reaction is among a series of responses to Mladić’s death that have once again exposed the sharply divided attitudes toward his legacy across the former Yugoslavia, particularly between those who regard him as a war criminal convicted of genocide and those who continue to portray him as a military or national figure.
