Ratko Mladic, the former Bosnian Serb military commander known as the ‘Butcher of Bosnia’ was sentenced to life in prison after being convicted of genocide and crimes against humanity.

The 74-year-old war criminal was found guilty of orchestrating massacres and ethnic cleansing during Bosnia's 1992-95 war, including the massacre at Srebrenica, Europe's worst atrocity since World War Two.

The conviction, which marked the final case of the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal, was hailed as a victory for justice and a warning to others - including Syrian president Bashar al-Assad - that the passage of time offered no protection to perpetrators of genocide.

In a moment of drama Mladic was removed from the court minutes before the verdict for screaming "this is all lies, you are all liars".

But the UN Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) found Mladic guilty of 10 of 11 charges, including the slaughter of 8,000 Muslim men and boys at Srebrenica and the siege of the Bosnian capital Sarajevo, in which more than 10,000 civilians died.