SCOTS who helped provide forensic evidence in the wake of the Srebrenica massacre have welcomed the sentencing of war criminal Ratko Mladic.

The Bosnian Serb general - known as the Butcher of Bosnia - was ejected from a courtroom at the United Nations' Yugoslav war crimes tribunal yesterday before being sentenced to life behind bars for genocide.

Glasgow sent support to Bosnia with Scottish forensic experts providing around 10,000 pieces of evidence for war crimes trials.

Mladic's forces carried out the worst massacre in Europe since the Second World War, has been convicted of genocide and other crimes.

At the Hague yesterday Presiding Judge Alphons Orie pronounced him guilty of 10 counts that also included war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Robert McNeil, an artist who uses painting to process and record the horrors he saw while working as a forensic technician, travelled from Glasgow to Bosnia six times and had two trips to Kosovo to help with identifying those recovered from mass graves.

He now works with the charity Remembering Srebrenica Scotland.

Robert, now retired, was a mortuary operations manager for NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde and used annual leave to return and work in the Balkan countries.

He said: "There were two charges of genocide: one for Srebrenica, for which he was quite rightly found guilty. The other was genocide all over Bosnia more generally.

"I represent the charity and it is not for us to comment on the tribunal's findings but we welcome the verdict on Srebrenica but we need to speak for all of the people affected by the war and for some this will bring some satisfaction.

"There are still a lot of people who still haven't found their loved ones' bodies. After 23 years they are still discovering mass graves containing men and boys."

Glasgow also sent forensic scientist Alison Anderson, who has spoken of her time in Srebrenica, and Elizabeth MacSorley, who worked as a forensic radiographer in Bosnia.

The conflict in the former Yugoslavia erupted after the country's break-up in the early 1990s, with the worst crimes taking place in Bosnia.

More than 100,000 people died and millions lost their homes before a peace agreement was signed in 1995.

Mladic went into hiding for around 10 years before his arrest in Serbia in May 2011.

In Srebrenica 8000 Muslim men and boys were slaughtered under orders given by Mladic.

Robert, who lives in Glasgow's west end, said he formed close friendships with people he met during his time in Bosnia and last year he returned with Remembering Srebrenica Scotland for a visit that allowed him to reflect on the work he had carried out.

He added: "I have made a number of close friends and their view on the verdict would vary depending on who you asked.

"Some will feel justice hasn't been done. A war crimes tribunal cannot fix a broken country. There are people who were young at the time whose lives have been blighted by the war, who are unemployed, who have missed out on education, for whom every aspect of normal life has been affected.

"This result is welcome because Mladic's conviction will send a message out to other would-be war criminals that it might take 23 years but justice will be done."