Ratko Mladic Found Guilty Of War Crimes In Bosnia

A UN war crimes tribunal has convicted Bosnian Serb military chief Ratko Mladic of genocide and sentenced him to life imprisonment.

He was convicted of the massacre of more than 7,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys at Srebrenica in 1995, and the siege of Sarajevo in which more than 10,000 people died.

The 74-year-old was removed from the courtroom just before his sentence was read for shouting at the judges and causing a disturbance.

The court also found that "genocide, persecution, extermination, murder and the inhuman act of forcible transfer were committed in or around Srebrenica" in 1995, said presiding judge Alphons Orie.

Previous judgments said the massacre of some 8,000 Muslim men and boys in the eastern town was genocide.

Supporters of Mladic have put up posters in Bosnia praising him.

Posters in the eastern Bosnian town of Bratunac carried a photo of Mladic in military attire with the words "you are our hero" written above.

Some former soldiers who fought under him came together to watch the pronouncement of the tribunal on whether he is guilty of genocide and other crimes during Bosnia's 1992-95 war.

And survivors of the massacre gathered at the memorial centre to also watch the live TV broadcast from the courtroom.

The massacre is remembered in history as Europe's worst mass killing since the Second World War.

The judgment marks the end of the tribunal's final trial. The court itself was set up in 1993 while fierce fighting was still raging in Bosnia.

The conflict in the former Yugoslavia erupted after the break-up of the multi-ethnic federation in the early 1990s.

The worst crimes took place in Bosnia; more than 100,000 people died and millions lost their homes before a peace agreement was signed in 1995, bringing an end to the conflict.

Mladic's political master during the war, former Bosnian Serb president Radovan Karadzic, was convicted last year for masterminding atrocities in Bosnia.

He was sentenced to 40 years for his crimes, although he has since appealed against the ruling.

The man widely blamed for fomenting wars across the Balkans, former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic, died in his UN cell in 2006 before tribunal judges could reach verdicts in his trial.

Ratko Mladic went into hiding after the war and remained a fugitive until his arrest in Serbia in May 2011.

Long before the hearing in The Hague started on Wednesday, survivors began gathering outside the court.

Fikret Alic, a Bosnian man who became a figurehead for the suffering of Bosnians during the war when he was photographed as an emaciated, was among those waiting to watch the hearing.

 He said:

"I expect justice and truth and that he is convicted ... for genocide.”