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Article snippet: THE HAGUE — It was the closing of one of Europe’s most shameful chapters of atrocity and bloodletting since World War II. With applause inside and outside the courtroom at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, Gen. Ratko Mladic, the former Bosnian Serb commander, was convicted on Wednesday of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. He was sentenced to life in prison. It was the last major item of business for the tribunal in The Hague before it wound down, a full quarter-century after many of the crimes on its docket were committed. From 1992 to 1995, the tribunal found, Mr. Mladic, 75, was the chief military organizer of the campaign to drive Muslims, Croats and other non-Serbs off their lands to cleave a new homogeneous statelet for Bosnian Serbs. The deadliest year of the campaign was 1992, when 45,000 people died, often in their homes, on the streets or in a string of concentration camps. Others perished in the siege of Sarajevo, the Bosnian capital, where snipers and shelling terrorized residents for more than three years, and in the mass executions of 8,000 Muslim men and boys after Mr. Mladic’s forces overran the United Nations-protected enclave of Srebrenica. Sitting impassively at first in the court in a blue suit and tie, Mr. Mladic seemed much smaller than the burly commander in fatigues who had often appeared before the news media during the war to defend himself and his forces. At one point, Mr. Mladic disappeared f... Link to the full article to read more