AFP looks at what became of the main players in the conflicts in the former Yugoslavia, after Kosovo's former president Hashim Thaci was sentenced to 25 years by a tribunal in The Hague on Wednesday for war crimes.
- Kosovo guerrilla leader Thaci -
In April 2023, Thaci and three other leaders of the guerrilla Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) went on trial for war crimes in a Hague tribunal set up to investigate atrocities committed during Kosovo's war for independence from Serbia in 1998-99.
In a long-awaited verdict on Wednesday which sparked outrage in the Balkan country, where he remains a symbol of its independence movement, the judge ruled that Thaci was guilty of illegal arrests, torture, murder and cruel treatment committed by Kosovo Liberation Army guerrillas.
Thaci denied the charges. Kosovo's Prime Minister Albin Kurti labelled the ruling against the former president and three other former guerrilla leaders "an unacceptable injustice (and) a great and harmful punishment".
Prosecutors had requested a 45-year prison sentence against Thaci in early 2026.
- 'Butcher' Mladic -
Bosnian Serb military leader Ratko Mladic, who died on August 27, was a war criminal dubbed the "Butcher of Bosnia" who oversaw the 1995 Srebrenica massacre -- Europe's worst single act of bloodshed since World War II.
He was convicted of genocide and war crimes over the nearly-four-year siege of the Bosnian capital Sarajevo by his forces between 1992 and 1996 and the massacre of more than 8,000 Muslim men and boys in the town of Srebrenica in 1995, among other crimes.
He was arrested in Serbia in 2011 after 16 years on the run and transferred to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague, where he was sentenced to life imprisonment in November 2017.
The verdict against him was confirmed on appeal in 2021. Despite his conviction, many Serbs view him as a hero and protector.
- Bosnian Serb leader Karadzic -
Former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic was accused of being the architect of a campaign of so-called "ethnic cleansing" that saw more than a million non-Serbs driven from their homes in Bosnia alongside widespread killings and rapes.
He evaded capture for 13 years until he was arrested in 2008 on a bus in the Serbian capital Belgrade masquerading as a New Age healer.
In 2016, he was convicted in The Hague over the genocide in Srebrenica and nine other charges including extermination, deportations and hostage-taking. He was sentenced to 40 years in prison, but that was later increased to life in jail.
- Yugoslav leader Milosevic
Former Serbian president and ex-Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic died in his cell at The Hague in 2006, aged 64, while on trial for 66 counts including genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. An official report said he had suffered a heart attack.
He was accused of fuelling ethnic conflict and mass murder in the former Yugoslavia during his 13-year rule.
- Ultranationalist Seselj -
UN judges in 2018 found ultranationalist Serb politician Vojislav Seselj, arch-propagandist for a "Greater Serbia", guilty on appeal of crimes against humanity and sentenced him to 10 years in prison.
The court said Seselj instigated the murders of scores of Croats, Muslims and other non-Serbs in incendiary speeches inciting violence against them.
As he had already spent almost 12 years in detention, the leader of the far-right Serbian Radical Party remains free.
- Croat general Gotovina -
Retired Croatian army general Ante Gotovina, considered a war hero by many Croats, was sentenced to 24 years in jail in 2011 for crimes against humanity and war crimes in Croatia's 1991-1995 war.
He was acquitted on appeal of the killing of ethnic Serbs in an operation in Croatia's Krajina region and received a rapturous reception on his return to Zagreb.
- Paramilitary leader 'Arkan' -
Zeljko "Arkan" Raznatovic, a Serbian mob boss who headed the feared "Tigers" paramilitary outfit, was indicted in 1997 by a court in The Hague for crimes against humanity and war crimes in Bosnia in 1995.
He was gunned down aged 47 in January 2000 in a Belgrade hotel.
- Bosnian Croat commander Praljak -
Slobodan Praljak, a former Bosnian Croat military commander, killed himself by drinking cyanide in The Hague in November 2017, just after appeal judges upheld his 20-year jail term for being part of a "joint criminal enterprise" to ethnically cleanse Bosnian Muslims in the war.
- Bosnian commander Naser Oric -
Naser Oric, 59, was former commander of the Bosnian forces in Srebrenica.
He was acquitted of war crimes charges by an international court in 2008, and subsequently by Bosnian courts in 2017 and 2018.
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