“NATIONAL HERO”

After hours with the coffin on display, the head of the Serbian Orthodox Church held a service inside the church.

“We know that his name will remain deeply etched in the memory and prayers of the majority of our Serbian Orthodox people, who feel and nurture a deep sense of gratitude towards him,” Patriarch Porfirije said.

As the casket was carried outside by soldiers, waiting crowds lined the street, waving flags bearing the former general’s face alongside large national tricolours of Serbia and the Bosnian Serb entity Republika Srpska.

According to AFP journalists and aerial footage of the procession, crowds in the area numbered in the thousands as the slow procession moved towards the nearby Topcider cemetery.

Despite his conviction, many Serb nationalists continue to paint Mladic as a hero and protector, particularly in the Republika Srpska where his death sparked vigils.

“I am here to see off the general, a national hero,” pensioner Radojka Visic, who had travelled from Republika Srpska’s capital Banja Luka, told AFP.

Nearby Milovan Bajic, said he was the “the greatest Serb and general”. “For every true Serb, Ratko Mladic is a sacred figure,” he said.

A slow procession took Mladic’s coffin to Topcider cemetery, where it was buried, surrounded by mourners.

“They set up artificial courts for our heroes in order to turn defenders into criminals and traitors into heroes. Thank you, brothers, for coming to decide whether my father was a hero or a criminal,” Darko Mladic said before the coffin was lowered into its grave. The crowd, many of them war veterans and young men, then responded by chanting: “Hero! Hero!”

The former general was buried next to his daughter, who killed herself during the Bosnian war.