Moscow: Russia today denounced the life term slapped on Bosnian Serb wartime military chief Ratko Mladic for genocide as biased, adding that it would undermine reconciliation efforts in the Balkans.
Foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova called yesterday’s decision to jail the 74-year-old for life “a continuation of a politicised and biased course that has dominated the work” of International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.
She said the court “used the one-sided, anti-Serb interpretation of the tragic events of the 1990s in former Yugoslavia”.
The ruling “undermines the process of rehabilitation of mutual trust in the Balkans,” Zakharova said.
Mladic’s was the last genocide trial before The Hague- based tribunal which will close its doors on December 31, having indicted 161 people since it was set up in 1993.
A traditional political and cultural ally of Serbia, Russia has always criticised decisions taken by UN judges against Bosnian Serb war crimes suspects.
Mladic, known as the “Butcher of Bosnia,” was found guilty of genocide and other counts during the 1992-1995 war that killed about 100,000 people.
Judges said he commanded Bosnian Serbs forces who carried out “mass executions.