Bosnian Muslim women in Tuzla, north of Sarajevo, sit in a room with the walls covered with pictures of victims of the Srebrenica massacre, watch a televised broadcast Friday of former Bosnian Serb military chief Gen. Ratko Mladic's court proceedings at The Hague, Netherlands. (AP photo)THE HAGUE: Wartime Bosnian Serb army chief Ratko Mladic denounced genocide and war crimes charges against him as “obnoxious” Friday, claiming he was gravely ill as he refused to enter a plea before a UN court in The Hague. Making his first appearance before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia since his arrest last week, Mladic said he “defended my people and my country” during the 1992-95 Bosnia conflict but declined the opportunity to plead not guilty. “I would like to read and receive these obnoxious charges against me. I want to read it with my lawyers,” Mladic told a panel of three judges in The Hague. “I need more than a month for these monstrous words that I have never heard of,” the ex-general dubbed the “Butcher of Bosnia” said of the claims. Widows and mothers of victims of the 1995 Srebrenica massacre of some 8,000 Muslim men and boys — which forms the crux of the genocide charges — followed the proceedings live on television in Bosnia as Mladic told the court: “I am a gravely ill man” and insisted on more time to answer the charges. “I hope God makes him burn in hell,” hissed one woman, seated among the gravestones of victims buried at the Potocari memorial center. “If only we could judge him here. I would like them to bring him here and we would tear him alive into little pieces,” added Hanifa Djogaz, glaring at the footage. Mladic appeared before judge Alphons Orie in a grey suit and gold and black tie, markedly older and thinner. “According to the indictment you, Ratko Mladic, are charged with genocide, crimes against humanity and under rules governing the customs of war,” judge Alphons Orie told the accused. The judge set July 4 as the date for Mladic's next appearance, by when he will be required to enter pleas to the 11 charges against him. Failing to do so, an automatic not-guilty plea will be entered on his behalf. If he pleads guilty, there will be no trial and a date will be set for a sentencing hearing. Mladic faces a maximum sentence of life in prison.
