Portuguese Prime Minister António Costa and President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen lamented what they described as the "shocking" official Serbian support at Ratko Mladic's funeral in Serbia. Both reacted to the presence of Serbian government representatives at the funeral ceremony.
Ratko Mladic, former general of the Bosnian Serb army, died at age 78 in The Hague, in the Netherlands. The former military commander was serving a life sentence since 2017, after being found guilty of genocide and crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.
Mladic was convicted for crimes committed during the Bosnian war (1992-1995), including the Srebrenica massacre, where more than 8,000 Bosnian men and boys were killed. His trial dragged on for years, with the former general trying to avoid the final sentence until 2017.
The reactions from Costa and Von der Leyen came in the context of tensions between Serbia and the European Union, at a time when Belgrade is seeking to maintain its accession process to the European bloc, while maintaining close relations with Russia.
