THE HAGUE: Victims of the 1992-95 Bosnian war gathered outside a Dutch courtroom as UN criminal proceedings started against Ratko Mladic, the Bosnian Serb commander accused of orchestrating the worst atrocities of a war that claimed 100,000 lives.
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Mr Mladic confirmed he understood the proceedings. ''I am General Ratko Mladic,'' he told the court, adding: ''I am a gravely ill man.'' Court doctors have said he is fit to appear.
Asked if he had read the indictment against him, Mr Mladic said that ''if they were in the three binders'' delivered to his cell, then he had not read it and would need at least three months to read the 37-page document.
Asked if he wanted to waive his right to have the indictment read out to him in court, Mr Mladic said, ''I do not want a single word or page of the document read out to me''.
The presiding judge then read a summary of the indictment, which covers involvement in three ''overriding joint criminal exercises'' covering genocide, persecution, extermination, murder, deportation and forcible removal aimed at Muslims and Croats in Serb-claimed territory; a terror campaign against the people of Sarajevo; and the systematic kidnapping of UN personnel.
Mr Mladic's appearance at the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal in the Netherlands was his first public appearance since he went into hiding nearly 16 years ago, when he was indicted for genocide and war crimes. Central to the charges are the massacre of 8000 Muslim boys and men at Srebrenica in July 1995.
Mr Mladic's lawyers and family say he is too ill to stand trial. Some victims, too, are concerned that Mr Mladic, 69, may be too ill to complete the lengthy trial process.
A lawyer representing victims, Axel Hageldorn, said: ''It's a big relief that he finally can be brought to court. But we are a bit concerned he is too sick to follow the trial to its end and there will be no verdict.''
His arraignment in court 1 of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia gives the families of thousands of his army's victims their first clear look at a man who went on the run 16 years ago.
Mr Mladic's long-awaited appearance in front of three judges - from the Netherlands, Germany and South Africa - promises an insight into his health problems, which are concerning prosecutors.
His lawyer, Milos Saljic, claimed to have documents proving that the former general had suffered lymph node cancer and was treated at a Serbian hospital in 2009. Previously he had said that Mr Mladic could die before the trial; there had also been unconfirmed reports that Mr Mladic had had two strokes.
Court officials said that since Mr Mladic's entry into custody on Tuesday night, following his extradition from Serbia, he had been communicative for long periods and co-operative.
Mr Mladic's appearance also looks set to test the extent of the Netherlands' anguish over its role in the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, since Dutch soldiers acted as UN peacekeepers in a safe haven supposedly to protect the Muslim population.
The Netherlands has been haunted by guilt over the atrocity. Its government resigned in 2002 over the issue, some soldiers sought therapy, and the most senior commander of the Dutch forces in Bosnia was hounded out of the Netherlands to an exile in Spain.
Guardian News & Media, Associated Press
