UN court orders medical review of jailed Bosnian Serb general Mladic amid release bid

The U.N. ‌war ​crimes court has ordered an independent medical assessment of lifetime inmate Ratko Mladic, after the 84-year-old Bosnian Serb general sought ‌early release on health grounds, court documents published Tuesday showed. Mladic is serving a life sentence for genocide and crimes against humanity in the 1992-95 war in Bosnia, and is currently held ‌in the U.N. detention unit in The Hague.

The general filed a motion ‌for early release on humanitarian grounds, the court said, because he is in a state of "advanced, irreversible medical decline resulting from a medical incident." That incident landed him briefly in a hospital emergency room earlier ⁠in ​April but additional ⁠details were redacted in the filings.

Now, a U.N. judge has ordered a report no later than May ⁠1 assessing Mladic's current health, life expectancy and standard of care in the detention unit and ​prison hospital. The court previously found that while Mladic's health condition was precarious, it was ⁠stable and well managed at the detention unit.

Mladic suffers from cognitive impairments, and following the medical incident, ⁠has ​been hospitalised multiple times in recent years, according to earlier court documents and hearings. He led Bosnian Serb forces during Bosnia's 1992-95 war, part of the bloody breakup ⁠of Yugoslavia.

Mladic was convicted on charges of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes, ⁠including terrorising the ⁠civilian population of Bosnian capital Sarajevo, and the killing of more than 8,000 Muslim men and boys taken prisoner in the eastern town ‌of Srebrenica ‌in 1995.

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