Kosovo’s acting Prime Minister, Albin Kurti, has accused Serbia of “state worship of genocide” following the burial with state honors of convicted war criminal Ratko Mladić.
Mladić, who was convicted of genocide for the Srebrenica massacre in Bosnia and Herzegovina, where 8,372 Bosniaks, mainly men and boys, were killed in July 1995, was laid to rest in a ceremony attended by senior state officials and representatives of Serbian institutions.
“With yesterday’s tearful religious service by Patriarch Porfirije over Ratko Mladić’s body, Serbia is confirming itself as a militaristic theocracy where its politicians are invited to cheer for different clubs in the same league. As of yesterday, denial is no longer a sufficient word. Serbia has moved to state worship of genocide,” Kurti wrote on his official Facebook account.
According to Kurti, the Srebrenica genocide is a “historical fact,” documented through mass graves, forensic identification of thousands of victims, survivors’ testimonies, and records of the operation to carry out the killings and conceal the bodies.
“Bosniak men and boys were separated from their families, systematically executed and dumped into mass graves; later, many of their bodies were exhumed and moved to secondary and tertiary mass graves to conceal the traces of the crime. Ratko Mladić was the commander of this machinery, not a witness to it,” Kurti said.
He added that while Slobodan Milošević has been described as the “Butcher of the Balkans,” Ratko Mladić was “his main axe,” criticizing the authorities in Belgrade for glorifying him.
Kurti also recalled that in 2007, the International Court of Justice found that Serbia had violated its obligation under the Genocide Convention to prevent the genocide in Srebrenica. He said Serbia had also failed to cooperate with the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia by not handing Mladić over for trial in a timely manner.
“The state that for years refused to hand him over to justice yesterday brought his body back on a government plane, wrapped it in a flag and sent him off with the military, ministers, senior clergy and an orchestra. This is how genocide denial moved from political statements to state liturgy,” Kurti wrote.
Kurti also referred to the burial of Serbian cleric Nikolaj Velimirović in May 1991, claiming that from then until Mladić’s funeral in September 2026, Serbia had organized “morbid spectacles for future bloodshed.”
He also linked the ceremony to several significant dates for Kosovo, including the 27th anniversary of the establishment of the Kosovo Police, the 29th anniversary of Mother Teresa’s death and the 10th anniversary of her canonization by Pope Francis, as well as the anniversary of the 1990 Constitution of the First Republic of Kosovo, known as the Kaçanik Constitution.
The post Kurti Reacts to Mladić’s Funeral: Serbia Has Moved to State Worship of Genocide appeared first on Euronews Albania.
