AT TIMES apparently confused, sometimes defiant, cowed, even occasionally ingratiating, a gaunt Ratko Mladic stood in the dock of the war crimes tribunal in The Hague yesterday with the air of a man who realised this trial may well be his final opportunity for public self-justification.
Yet even that extraordinarily self-deluding realisation must surely have faltered as the former Bosnian Serb commander listened to the litany of atrocities with which he is charged: two counts of genocide, persecution; extermination; murder; deportation; waging terror – crimes, the prosecutor said, which had “torn a nation apart”.
The tribunal itself was calculatedly low-key and procedural.
Yet even so, a chill ran through the courtroom as the 11 counts – each one as shocking as the last – were read aloud to 69-year-old Mladic.
There was an unmistakable sense that this was a landmark moment for international criminal justice, and a moment of accountability for the atrocities of the Bosnian war which raged in south central Europe from 1992 to 1995.
From the outset Mladic, who refused to enter a plea to the charges, which he described as “obnoxious” and “monstrous”, seemed not quite certain how to project himself.
He appeared just after 10am, with a guard on either side, wearing a worn blue-grey pinstripe suit, a grey shirt, checked tie, and a military forage cap which he later removed.
He looked older than his years after 15 years on the run.
Asked to confirm that he could follow the proceedings in a language he understood, he uttered his first words.
“I understand my mother tongue . . .”
He then identified himself as “General Mladic”, though the presiding judge, Alphons Orie of the Netherlands, addressed him throughout as “Mr Mladic”.
Mladic told the tribunal he was “gravely will” and “in a poor state”, a claim he later discussed in a 10-minute private session with the three judges.
But he also declared: “I just have to say that I want to live to see that I am a free man.”
Yet when Judge Orie asked him if he wished to have the full 37-page indictment read to him, he responded with just a glimmer of his bullish war-time self.
“I do not wish to have a single letter or sentence of that indictment read out to me,” he said. But it was. He shook his head in denial as the judge described the slaughter of 8,000 Muslim men and boys at Srebrenica in July 1995, for which he stands accused of genocide.
He remained impassive as he was charged with crimes against humanity for the 44-month siege of Sarajevo from 1992 to 1995, in which more than 10,000 people died.
Judge Orie recounted how Bosnian Serb forces, allegedly under Mladic’s command, had carried out a sustained campaign of “sniping and shelling to kill, maim, wound and terrorise” the inhabitants of the city.
And when finally this abbreviated version of the indictment had been delivered to the silent courtroom, the former general came closest to losing his composure.
He dismissed the “obnoxious charges” levelled against him, and insisted that he needed considerably more time than the 30 days allowed for entering a plea – so that he could fully consider the indictment’s “monstrous words”, which he had not yet had an opportunity, he said, to read for himself.
Judge Orie told him patiently that although he understood that the general felt he needed more time, the tribunal’s rules allowed 30 days only for the initial pleas, though he reassured him: “This does not mean of course that you must prepare your entire defence within that time.”
The judge scheduled Mladic’s next appearance before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia for July 4th, and ordered that he be returned to the United Nations’ detention unit at Scheveningen jail, a few kilometres away.
As the hearing came to an end, Mladic again felt the urge to make his presence felt.
“The whole world knows who I am. I am General Ratko Mladic. I defended my people, my country – now I am defending myself.”
He told the judges he had been treated with “fairness and dignity” since his arrest, but now had one request for the tribunal.
Apparently referring to the guards who had entered the courtroom with him, he said: “I do not want to be helped to walk as if I were some blind cripple.
“If I want help, I’ll ask for it.” With that, his initial appearance was over.
Relatives of those who died in the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina watched Mladic from the gallery and said although they were pleased to see him finally brought to justice, the experience had shaken them – and revived their anger.
“I came here today to see if his eyes are still bloody”, said Munira Subasic, whose husband and 18-year-old son were killed by Bosnian Serb forces in Srebrenica.
“In 1995 I begged him to let my son go,” she said.
“He listened to me and promised to let him go. I trusted him at that moment.
“Sixteen years later I am still searching for my son’s bones.”
UN WAR CRIMES TRIBUNAL THE CHARGES AGAINST MLADIC
RATKO MLADIC has been charged with 11 counts of genocide and crimes against humanity and violations of the laws and customs of war.
Count 1: Mladic committed, together with others, planned, instigated, ordered and aided genocide against Bosnian Muslims and Bosnian Croats.
Count 2: Mladic committed, together with others, planned, instigated, ordered and aided genocide against Bosnian Muslim national ethnic groups.
Additionally, Mladic knew that genocide was about to be or had been committed by his subordinates.
He participated in a joint criminal enterprise to eliminate the Bosnian Muslims in Srebrenica by killing over 7,000 men and boys of Srebrenica and forcibly removing the women, young children and some elderly.
(Counts 1 and 2 constitute genocide)
Count 3: He committed, with others, and planned, instigated,ordered and aided persecutions on political or religious grounds against Bosnian Muslims and Bosnian Croats.
(Count 3 constitutes a crime against humanity)
Counts 4-6: Mladic committed or planned or helped the extermination and murder of Bosnian Muslims and Bosnian Croats in municipalities, the extermination and murder of Bosnian Muslims in Srebrenica and the civilian population of Sarajevo.
(Counts 4 and 5 constitute crimes against humanity; count 6, violation of laws or customs of war)
Counts 7-8: Mladic planned, instigated, ordered, committed and helped the forcible transfer and deportation of Bosnian Muslims, Bosnian Croats or other non-Serbs from the municipalities and from Srebrenica.
These were carried out between May 12th, 1992, and November 30th, 1995.
(Counts 7 and 8 constitute crimes against humanity)
Counts 9-10: Mladic instigated, ordered, committed and helped in the commission of the crimes of terror and unlawful attacks on civilians.
He also took part in a joint criminal enterprise to carry out a campaign of sniping and shelling against the civilian population of Sarajevo between April 1992 and November 1995, to spread terror among the civilian population.
(Counts 9 and 10 constitute violations of the laws or customs of war)
Count 11: He planned, instigated, ordered, committed and abetted the taking of UN military observers and peacekeepers as hostages.
Forces under Mladic's control detained more than 200 UN peacekeepers and military observers and they used them as human shields in various strategic locations to prevent Nato from conducting a campaign of air strikes against Bosnian Serb military targets.
Threats were issued to the UN, Nato and others that further Nato attacks would result in the injury, death or continued detention of the detainees.
Some detainees were assaulted before being released in June 1995.
(Count 11 constitutes violations of the laws or customs of war)
– (Sources: Reuters/icty.org)