"Former Bosnian Serb military chief Gen. Ratko Mladic told a United Nations war crimes court Friday he is 'a gravely ill man' and refused to enter pleas to 'obnoxious charges' alleging he orchestrated the worst atrocities of a war that claimed 100,000 lives," The Associated Press reports from The Hague.
The B BC adds that Mladic "told the court he had been 'defending my people and my country.' "
The Guardianis live-blogging the court proceeding. Peter Beaumont, foreign affairs editor at the Observer, writes there that:
"The experience of being in court has very quickly brought the old General Mladic to the fore: arrogant, defiant, insisting as he has just done that he is in court to defend his people and his country and not himself, which has brought a rebuke from the judge that he is charged as an 'individual.' "
The AP adds a short video of Mladic's court appearance.
After 16 years as a fugitive, Mladic was arrested last week in Serbia. The indictment against him spells out a long list of alleged attrocities:
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