Ratko Mladic, the Bosnian Serb general convicted of genocide and orchestrating atrocities during the 1990s Bosnian War, has died in prison at age 84. Serbian state television RTS and official Bosnian Serb television reported his death, stating he died in a U.N. prison hospital in The Hague, Netherlands.

A family member, speaking anonymously, confirmed the reports to the Associated Press and stated that Mladic's son was traveling to The Hague. U.N. court officials were unable to immediately confirm the death.

Mladic was sentenced to life in prison in 2017 by the U.N. tribunal for war crimes committed during the Yugoslav Wars. He had been in custody since 2011 after years on the run. Known as a ruthless nationalist warlord, Mladic was a prominent figure in the conflict that resulted in over 100,000 deaths and displaced more than a million people.

During the war, Mladic commanded Bosnian Serb troops, seizing large territories to establish a Serb mini-state. Under his command, Serbs besieged the capital, Sarajevo, established concentration camps, and systematically killed prisoners. His forces were responsible for the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, where more than 8,000 Muslim men and boys were killed, an event classified as genocide.

Mladic, born in 1942, was influenced by his family's wartime experiences. He began his military career as a communist officer before embracing nationalism as Yugoslavia disintegrated. He led Serb forces in Croatia before taking command of the Bosnian Serb army, which was supported by Serbia and its then-President Slobodan Milošević.

Mladic's actions were marked by defiant rhetoric. He was known to have ordered troops to "scorch the brains" of Bosnian Muslims and referred to himself as a "Serbian God." He saw the war as a form of revenge for historical events, referring to Bosnian Muslims as "Turks."

After being indicted for genocide in 1996, Mladic went into hiding, initially in a military compound and later in Belgrade. He was eventually arrested in May 2011 in a village near Belgrade and had been in custody since then. While in court, he remained unrepentant, even yelling at judges during his sentencing. He had suffered from poor health in the years leading up to his death, including multiple strokes.