Thousands turn out in Serbia for funeral of 'Butcher of Bosnia' Ratko Mladić

Thousands of people have turned out in Serbia's capital, Belgrade, to attend the funeral of the convicted war criminal Ratko Mladić.

Widely known as the Butcher of Bosnia, Mladić died at the age of 84 while serving a life sentence in the UN prison in The Hague, the Netherlands.

He was found guilty of genocide by a UN war crimes tribunal for his role in the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, when around 8,000 Bosniak Muslim men and boys were killed. It was described as Europe's worst atrocity since World War Two.

A Serbian government minister had initially said that Mladić would be given a state funeral ​but those plans were changed after objections from some European leaders. On Monday, the EU denounced Mladić's "glorification".

"Ratko Mladić was a convicted war criminal who had committed war crimes, genocide, and crimes against humanity," the EU said in a statement.

"Any glorification of war criminals, genocide denial and revisionism contradict the most fundamental European values and have no place in the EU or in EU candidate countries," the statement said.

Serbia has been a candidate to join the EU since 2012, even though membership talks have recently stalled.

Ratko Mladić commanded Bosnian Serb forces in the 1990s against the Bosnian Croat and Bosniak (Bosnian Muslim) armies.