An international tribunal has refused a request for the provisional release of the convicted Bosnian Serb war criminal Ratko Mladic, his son, Darko, told AFP.
Mladic, 83, was found guilty of genocide nine years ago and sentenced to life in prison. He has been severely ill and suffered a stroke last month.
At the end of April, Mladic's lawyers filed a motion for his provisional release based on his severe health condition and demanded transfer to Serbia for treatment.
They submitted that he was "in a state of advanced, irreversible medical decline resulting from a medical incident... and is approaching the end of his life".
"We have been informed that our demand to be released was rejected," Darko Mladic told AFP by phone from the Netherlands.
He described the justification for the refusal as "bizarre and cynical", blaming the doctors for not being able to diagnose the stroke for three weeks until he suffered another.
The International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals decision states that Mladic was not deprived of proper medical care and said the prison hospital is of such high quality "that Mladic's comfort can be maximally ensured".
"For Mladic, upholding his dignity and fundamental rights, including creating sufficient possibilities for him to be surrounded by family and friends, does not require his release, given the information currently before me," judge Graciela Gatti Santana wrote in the decision.
A UN tribunal in 2017 sentenced Mladic to life imprisonment for genocide and war crimes during Bosnia's 1990s war, which claimed an estimated 100,000 lives.
The verdict was confirmed on appeal in 2021.
One of the crimes ascribed to him was the July 1995 massacre of approximately 8,000 Bosnian men and boys in the eastern Srebrenica region.
Mladic was arrested in Serbia in 2011.
