Funeral of war criminal Mladic opens old wounds

Thousands of people gathered in Belgrade on Monday for the funeral of the former Bosnian Serb General Ratko Mladic, who died last week while serving a life sentence for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Crowds carrying Serbian flags and pictures of Mladic wearing a traditional Serbian military cap gathered outside the church in a Belgrade suburb where the head of the country's Orthodox church, Serbian Patriarch Porfirije, presided over the service.

Mladic's coffin, surrounded by armed soldiers in fatigues and accompanied by a brass band, was then paraded through streets thronged with onlookers, who chanted his name. He was buried at a nearby cemetery next to his daughter, who died in 1994.

It was one of the biggest public funerals in Serbia since the fall of communism in 1990 and showed how revered Mladic remains among many in Serbia and in Bosnia's autonomous Serb Republic, despite his convictions linked to his role in the 1995 Srebrenica massacre and in the siege of Sarajevo - two of the bloodiest events in post-war Europe.

"He is a hero," Djordje, a 34-year-old man who came from Prijepolje to pay respects to Mladic, said. "He was a great military strategist."

Mladic's death has stirred up strong feelings linking back to the break-up of Yugoslavia and the ethnic conflicts that ensued in the Balkans.

Mladic was found guilty by the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia of genocide for his role in the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, in which about 8,000 Bosniak Muslim men and boys were killed after Bosnian Serb forces overran the U.N.-designated enclave.

He was also convicted over the 43-month siege of Sarajevo, during which about 10,000 people were killed.