He's the most senior political figure to be convicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague.
The court has found him guilty on 10 counts of crimes against humanity and violations of the customs of war, including the genocide in Srebrenica.
It acquitted the 70 year-old of charges for genocide in seven other municipalities.
Even as it was happening in 1995, it was obvious an atrocity was being committed in Srebrenica.
"My first thought was for the commander who ordered that yesterday - quite honestly I hope that he burns in the hottest corner of hell. Then I thought of the soldiers who loaded those weapons and fired those weapons, and I hope they have nightmares for the rest of their lives, I hope their sleep is punctuated by the screams of the children and the cries of the mothers."
That was Larry Hollingworth, Director of Operations at the United Nations, the day after the Srebrenica massacre - Europe's worst mass murder since the Holocaust.
Bosnian Serb forces, commanded by General Ratko Mladic, took over the UN-designated 'safe' area of Srebrenica on July the 11th, 1995.
They separated women from men and massacred about 8,000 Muslim men and boys in the following days.
Survivors of the Srebrenica massacre say the 40-year jail term is not tough enough and comes too late.
Fadila Efendic, who lost her son and husband in the massacre, says they have waited too long for the verdict.
"The justice hasn't won. We should have had this trial finished before. We waited for it for too long and many mothers are not alive to hear this verdict, although it's not what we have expected."
In Radovan Karadzic's wartime stronghold of Pale, passers-by say the verdict is unlikely to prompt reconciliation in a country carved up along ethnic lines that are largely still in place.
Pale resident Nemanja Popovic says people have to practise reconciliation themselves if they are to move forward.
"It's been over 20 years since the crimes were committed by both sides so it's time that we create our own opinion and our view which is not imposed by others. There is no verdict that can help the reconciliation as long as the one side is being accused by other side. It will be only when we start listening to each other, through dialogue, that we might get out of this darkness which exists between these two peoples [Serbs and Bosniaks]."
Prosecutors have been criticised for not bringing charges against two other leaders of that era who have since died -- Croatian President Franjo Tudjman and Bosnian President Alija Izetbegovic.
Opponents of the ICTY say its prosecutors have disproportionately targeted Serbs as 94 of 161 suspects charged were from the Serbian side, while 29 were Croat and nine Bosnian Muslim.
Several thousand Serbian ultra-nationalists rallied in Belgrade in protest against the sentence.
Radovan Karadzic's court-appointed legal advisor, Peter Robinson, says his client will appeal.
"Dr Karadzic is disappointed, he's astonished. He feels that the trial chamber took inference instead of evidence in reaching the conclusions that he did and he's determined to appeal his judgement."
Share
