BRUSSELS, Sept 4 (Reuters) – European Union enlargement chief Marta Kos cancelled a trip to Serbia on Friday after a Serbian government plane took the body of former army commander and convicted war criminal Ratko Mladic to Belgrade for what is expected to be a huge funeral.
Mladic, who was convicted of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes committed during Bosnia’s 1992-95 war, died last week in a U.N. detention facility in The Hague aged 84.
“The glorification surrounding his death is incompatible with the values on which the EU path is built. That path requires confronting the past, genuine reconciliation and respecting the victims of war crimes,” Kos wrote on X.
“The values that underpin our common future are not negotiable.”
Mladic remained a revered figure among many Serbs in Serbia and in Bosnia’s autonomous Serb Republic.
“Everything is expected, nothing new,” Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said after Kos cancelled her visit. “The explanation was extremely short, but stupid, as usual.”
A Serbian government minister said initially that Mladic would be given a state funeral but, following an outcry by European leaders, the government has not confirmed that.
A commemoration ceremony in the Army Hall building in central Belgrade is being organised by an association of retired generals. The funeral will be held in a church in a Belgrade suburb on Monday and Mladic will be buried at a cemetery beside his daughter.
(Reporting by Inti Landauro in Brussels and Ivana Sekularac in Belgrade, Editing by Sudip Kar-Gupta and Timothy Heritage)
