The council in charge of naming and renaming settlements, streets and squares in the northeastern municipality of Berane, Montenegro, adopted a proposal to name a local street after former Bosnian Serb army commander Ratko Mladic, who is appealing his life sentence for war crimes, including genocide, committed in Bosnia.

The head of the council, Goran Kikovic, said that the decision was made by an advisory body which has no decision-making powers but forwards its opinion on the proposals to the competent Secretariat, and that the final word on naming streets or renaming them comes from the competent ministry.

“The Council received a large number of proposals from institutions and individuals, and it is true that among them were proposals for one of the streets to be named after general Ratko Mladic, and that proposal passed, while the proposal for another street to bear the name of duke Pavle Djurisic was not approved because three members out of seven who attended the session voted against it,” he said.