Bosnian Serb general Zdravko Tolimir has died in jail in The Hague where he was handed a life sentence for genocide in the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, the Yugoslav war crimes court confirmed Tuesday.

"He died overnight," said an official of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) who declined to be named. Once considered the right-hand man of Bosnian Serb army chief Ratko Mladic, Tolimir was sentenced to life in 2012 for crimes committed during the 1990s Bosnian war.