BBC News - Ratko Mladic shuns 'monstrous' war crimes charges: "Ex-Bosnian Serb army head Ratko Mladic has made his first appearance at The Hague war crimes tribunal, saying he will not enter a plea to the 'monstrous' and 'obnoxious' charges.
He is charged with atrocities during the 1992-95 Bosnian war, including the massacre of nearly 8,000 Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica in 1995.
Gen Mladic, who said he was 'gravely ill', told the court he had been 'defending my people and my country'.
He was arrested last week in Serbia.
The tribunal indictment charges him with genocide, persecution, extermination, murder, deportation, inhumane acts, terror, deportation and hostage-taking.
Prosecutors say this was his part in a plot to achieve the 'elimination or permanent removal' of Muslims from large parts of Bosnia in pursuit of a Greater Serbia.
As well as Srebrenica, Europe's worst atrocity since World War II, Gen Mladic is also charged over the 44-month siege of the capital Sarajevo from May 1992 in which 10,000 people died.
His lawyer and his family say he is too ill to stand trial but doctors have so far declared him fit to be in court."
Friday, June 3, 2011
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