The lawyers pointed to evidence from two doctors who assessed his condition and concluded that his risk of imminent death was high.
They wrote: “The continued detention of Mr Mladic under these conditions serves no legitimate penological purpose. Rather, it risks constituting inhumane and degrading treatment, contrary to the principles articulated in the Tribunal’s jurisprudence.
“Especially in his current, bed-ridden and barely communicative state, continued detention would amount to cruel, inhumane punishment, as per the legal authorities cited hereinabove.”
The lawyers added in their submission: “It is without question that end-of-life treatment, and palliative care to improve quality of life, can be only accomplished outside of a jailhouse setting, among family and caretakers in a hospital/hospice that speaks the same language as Mr Mladic.”
Judge Graciela Gatti Santana, who is hearing the submission, previously oversaw the appeals process for Radovan Karadzic, the Bosnian Serb political leader who was also convicted of war crimes.
She requested an independent review of Mladic’s condition, which was scheduled to be delivered on this week. It is unclear whether the report was filed.
Last year, Mladic’s lawyers twice sought his release, first in July, which was turned down, and then in November for a temporary release for him to attend a memorial service for a family member, which was also denied.
Judges insisted that his “conditions of detention continue to be in full compliance with the principles of humanity and respect for human dignity”.
The Yugoslav wars were a series of separate but related ethnic conflicts in the former Yugoslavia, which began in the early 1990s.
More than 100,000 people died and millions were displaced during the conflict, with the worst war crimes committed against Bosniaks and Croats.
As a military officer who led the Army of Republika Srpska (the Bosnian Serb army) during the war, Mladic was responsible for thousands of deaths.
He disappeared in 1995 and was tracked down in rural Serbia in 2011 after 16 years on the run.
He went on trial at The Hague in 2012. He has been held in UN detention facilities since 2011.
Bosnian groups have strongly opposed his release.
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