Global General

Mladic calls charges 'obnoxious, monstrous'

(Agencies)
Updated: 2011-06-03 16:53

Former Bosnian Serb commander Ratko Mladic appears in court at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in the Hague, June 3, 2011. Mladic appeared on Friday before the Yugoslav war crimes court to hear charges of genocide over the 1992-95 Bosnian war. [Photo/Agencies]

THE HAGUE - Former Bosnian Serb military commander Ratko Mladic told the Yugoslav war crimes court he was a gravely ill man and had not yet been able to read documents relating to the charges against him.

Extradited to the Netherlands from Serbia on Tuesday following his arrest last week, Mladic appeared in court looking aged, with the right side of his mouth drooping.

He appeared to slur his words slightly.

At Friday's hearing Mladic was expected to be asked to enter a plea and to have the charges read out to him, but he opposed this procedure.

"I do not want to have one word of that indictment read out to me," Mladic said, but listened as the judge read a summary.

Mladic called charges against him "obnoxious" and "monstrous words" as he declined to enter a plea at the Yugoslavia war crimes court on Friday.

Mladic was indicted over the 43-month siege of the Bosnian capital Sarajevo and the massacre of 8,000 Muslim men and boys in the town of Srebrenica, close to the border with Serbia, during the 1992-95 Bosnian war.

Mladic, who has 30 days to enter a plea, said he needed "more than a month" in court to study the charges against him, but Judge Alphons Orie scheduled a new hearing for July 4 for Mladic to enter a plea.

Making a basketball hand signal for "time out" (a pause), Mladic asked to speak in private with his lawyer and Orie called a 10-minute recess.