Mladic refuses to plead to 'obnoxious' allegations
Source: Agencies |
June 4, 2011, Saturday
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Print Edition
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RATKO Mladic yesterday refused to enter pleas to what he called "obnoxious" allegations that as the Serb military chief during the Bosnian war he orchestrated the worst atrocities of a conflict that claimed 100,000 lives. He claimed he was defending "my people and my country."
Appearing in a United Nations courtroom in The Hague shielded by bulletproof glass 16 years after he was first indicted, Mladic told the Dutch presiding judge he was "gravely ill," but would only give details of his health in private.
Mladic appeared unable to fully use his right hand. Court guards supported him as he stood up and helped him put on a headset so he could listen to a simultaneous translation of the hearing in Serbian. His head was almost entirely bald after he removed a baseball cap he wore when he entered court, and his speech was slow and slightly slurred.
His family said after his arrest that he had suffered two strokes while on the run from an indictment for genocide and war crimes committed in the 1992-95 Bosnian war, including ethnic cleansing purges of non-Serbs and the massacre of 8,000 Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica.
But Mladic had lost none of the bluster he demonstrated while commanding Serb forces accused of atrocities throughout the 1992-95 Bosnian war.
He saluted the public gallery with his left hand and gruffly told Presiding Judge Alphons Orie he did not want "a single letter or sentence" of his indictment read in court. When asked by if he wanted to enter pleas, Mladic replied that he did not want to respond to the "obnoxious charges" and "monstrous words."
"I am General Mladic and the whole world knows who I am," he declared at the end of the hearing that lasted one hour and 40 minutes.
A new hearing will be on July 4. If Mladic refuses to plead, "not guilty" pleas will be filed on his behalf.
Appearing in a United Nations courtroom in The Hague shielded by bulletproof glass 16 years after he was first indicted, Mladic told the Dutch presiding judge he was "gravely ill," but would only give details of his health in private.
Mladic appeared unable to fully use his right hand. Court guards supported him as he stood up and helped him put on a headset so he could listen to a simultaneous translation of the hearing in Serbian. His head was almost entirely bald after he removed a baseball cap he wore when he entered court, and his speech was slow and slightly slurred.
His family said after his arrest that he had suffered two strokes while on the run from an indictment for genocide and war crimes committed in the 1992-95 Bosnian war, including ethnic cleansing purges of non-Serbs and the massacre of 8,000 Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica.
But Mladic had lost none of the bluster he demonstrated while commanding Serb forces accused of atrocities throughout the 1992-95 Bosnian war.
He saluted the public gallery with his left hand and gruffly told Presiding Judge Alphons Orie he did not want "a single letter or sentence" of his indictment read in court. When asked by if he wanted to enter pleas, Mladic replied that he did not want to respond to the "obnoxious charges" and "monstrous words."
"I am General Mladic and the whole world knows who I am," he declared at the end of the hearing that lasted one hour and 40 minutes.
A new hearing will be on July 4. If Mladic refuses to plead, "not guilty" pleas will be filed on his behalf.
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