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Bosnia and Herzegovina ordered two Serbian diplomats to leave the country within 48 hours on Tuesday after senior Serbian figures attended an official funeral in Belgrade for convicted war criminal Ratko Mladic.
Foreign Minister Elmedin Konakovic said military attache Milan Dulanovic and Darko Maksimovic, an adviser representing Serbia’s Security Information Agency, or BIA, at the Serbian Embassy in Sarajevo, had been declared persona non grata.
“They crossed every red line,” Konakovic said, after at least six Serbian ministers joined thousands at Monday’s funeral, where Mladic was openly praised.
Konakovic had already withdrawn almost all staff from Bosnia’s Embassy in Belgrade and said he wanted relations reduced to the “lowest possible level” allowed without presidential approval.
“If I could, I would break off diplomatic relations with Serbia right now,” he said.
Bosnia also withdrew support for a planned “Declaration on Good Neighborly Relations and Regional Cooperation” in Montenegro.
Konakovic described the European Union’s response to Serbia’s treatment of Mladic as “insufficient.”
Mladic, the former Bosnian Serb military commander, was convicted of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity, including responsibility for the July 1995 Srebrenica genocide in which 8,372 Bosniak civilians were killed.
Born in 1942 near Kalinovik, he served in the Yugoslav People’s Army before becoming chief of the General Staff of the Army of Republika Srpska in 1992, a position he held until 1996.
He was first indicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia on July 24, 1995, and later fled to Serbia, where he remained in hiding for about 16 years amid allegations that people within state institutions had protected him.
Mladic was arrested near Zrenjanin on May 26, 2011, transferred to The Hague on May 31 and went on trial in May 2012, denying the charges.
He died on Aug. 27 after suffering serious health problems while serving a life sentence in The Hague.
His body was buried in Belgrade on Sept. 7 at an official ceremony attended by numerous Serbian officials, prompting criticism.
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