'Butcher of Bosnia' Ratko Mladic's Genocide Trial Begins
Former Serbian General Ratko Mladic's war crimes trial began on Wednesday at the U.N. court in the Hague, Netherlands, where a tribunal is accusing him of crimes against humanity.
Mladic is the last suspect from the 1992-1995 Bosnia war that left 100,000 people dead, including 8,000 Muslim men who were targeted specifically because of their ethnicity. For his leadership role during the genocide, Mladic, believed to be an Orthodox Christian like most Serbs, became known as "the Butcher of Bosnia."
When the former general entered court on Wednesday, however, he gave a thumbs-up and clapped to supporters, The Associate Press reported. As Mladic heard the long list of accusations read against him, he reportedly showed no emotion.
Relatives of those who died in the war were waiting for Mladic, and one 65-year-old woman, who lost 22 family members in a 1995 massacre, sad she wanted to look the former general in the eye "and ask him if he will repent for what he did."
"The world watched in disbelief that in neighborhoods and villages within Europe a genocide appeared to be in progress," the persecutor, Dermot Groom said, pointing out to the ethnic cleansing of Muslims as the worst mass murder in Europe since World War II.
"By the time Mladic and his troops murdered thousands in Srebrenica ... they were well-rehearsed in the craft of murder," Groome told the court.
Prosecutors have also said they will bring forth evidence that proves "beyond reasonable doubt" that Mladic had a hand in a series of crimes that sought to ethnically cleanse the region of non-Serbs.
Although Mladic has not yet entered a plea, he is defending himself by claiming that he acted to defend Serbians in Bosnia.
"The whole world knows who I am," he said at a hearing last year. "I am General Ratko Mladic. I defended my people, my country ... now I am defending myself."
The maximum sentence he can face is life imprisonment.
