BELGRADE, Serbia — The European Union’s Enlargement Commissioner Marta Kos on Friday canceled an upcoming visit to candidate nation Serbia over what she described as the “glorification” of former Bosnian Serb army commander Ratko Mladić following his death. Mladić was convicted of genocide by a U.N. court but remains a hero to many Serbs.
\n\nMladić’s remains were flown to Belgrade on a Serbian government plane from The Hague, Netherlands, on Thursday, a week after his death and days ahead of his burial in a Belgrade cemetery.
\n\nMladić was sentenced in 2017 to life imprisonment for orchestrating the massacre of more than 8,000 Muslims in Srebrenica in 1995; the yearslong siege of the Bosnian capital of Sarajevo during the 1992-95 conflict; and other war crimes, including setting up concentration camps for detained non-Serb civilians and enemy soldiers.
\n\nUpon landing in Belgrade, Mladić’s coffin was wrapped in the national flag and Serbian soldiers carried his body to a van for transport to the military hospital. Serbia’s Justice Minister Nenad Vujic was on the plane with Mladić’s family members and nationalist admirers lit flares as the convoy passed.
\n\nKos said on X that “the glorification surrounding his death is incompatible with the values…
Original source: https://www.nbcnews.com/