Ex-Bosnian Serb army commander, Ratko Mladic, also known as the Butcher of Bosnia, has appeared before The Hague Tribunal, refusing to testify at the trial of his former political master, Radovan Karadzic.
Karadzic and Mladic are two of the most important figures of the 1990s war in Bosnia, who are appearing together in public for the first time since the end of the conflict.
The ex-Bosnian Serb leader has called ex-deputy Ratko Mladic to give evidence at the UN Yugoslav war crimes tribunal in The Hague.
Karadzic faces 11 charges, including genocide relating to the Srebrenica massacre in July 1995. Both men have denied war crimes and crimes against humanity.
The hearing session was supposed to shed light on the relationship between Karadzic and Mladic during the fall of Srebrenica and the siege of Sarajevo in 1995.
Mladic deplored the UN tribunal as “satanic,” saying that testifying could prejudice his own case.
“This is a satanic court, which is putting on trial us Serbs because we are defending our people from you,” he added.
Karadzic was arrested in Belgrade in 2008 after 13 years on the run. He had been found living in disguise in Belgrade under a false name.
Mladic was on the run for 16 years before being arrested in 2011 in northern Serbia, where he had been also living under an assumed name.
Both Mladic and Karadzic have been charged with genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity in a war in which at least 100,000 people lost their lives.
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