Banja Luka mayor praises war criminal Ratko Mladic, Dodik spreads conspiracies

"For the Serb people, Ratko Mladic remains a man whose name is deeply inscribed in our history. A man who, as many remember, carried the hardest moments of his people on his shoulders, who made sacrifices for his people and whose work and name will continue to live," Stanivukovic wrote. "History will be written by time, judged by different people and different policies, but the people do not forget those they believe fought for them."

Mladic was conclusively sentenced to life imprisonment by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia for genocide in Srebrenica, crimes against humanity, and violations of the laws and customs of war during the conflict in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

In addition to Stanivukovic, Alliance of Independent Social Democrats (SNSD) leader and former Republika Srpska President Milorad Dodik also extended condolences to the family of the convicted war criminal, asserting that Mladic lived through difficult conditions in recent years and could have lived longer with better medical assistance.

According to ATV, Dodik claimed the outcome amounted to a form of murder orchestrated by the Mechanism because they did not know how to exit the situation, comparing it to the case of Slobodan Milosevic while noting that lesser-known detainees were released shortly before dying.