Surgery Interrupts Hague Trial

Mladic failed to appear in court on Monday morning, claiming that he felt unwell.

After initial confusion, the presiding judge Alphons Orie announced he had been told that Mladic was in The Hague’s Bronovo hospital, where he “underwent minor invasive surgery”.

Mladic however did not give permission for the chamber to hear details about the nature of the operation.

According to judge Orie, a specialist from the hospital recommended that Mladic have a day’s rest from his trial, and the chamber rescheduled the hearing for Tuesday.

Mladic’s lawyer, Branko Lukic, had previously said that he believed that Mladic’s visit to hospital was unscheduled.

Lukic announced he would request that due to Mladic’s poor health, the court be in session for four instead of five days a week in the future, emphasising that the proposal was supported by custody doctors.

Mladic’s trial has been interrupted on several previous occasions due to illness.

Jean-Rene Ruez, the chief Hague investigator of the Srebrenica massacres between 1995 and 2001, had been scheduled to testify on Monday.

According to the indictment and earlier verdicts by the Hague Tribunal, the Bosnian Serb Army, under Mladic’s command, systematically killed around 7,000 Bosniak men in the days after the fall of Srebrenica, then a United Nations protected zone, on July 11, 1995.

Mladic is also charged with the expulsion of Bosniaks and Croats across Bosnia and Herzegovina, terrorising Sarajevo civilians with long-running shelling and sniper campaigns and taking UN peacekeepers hostage.