Ratko Mladic Ejected from Courtroom

Mladic was told to leave the courtroom on Monday after getting into an altercation with judge Alphons Orie over whether he shouted the name of prosecutor Amira Zec after being previously forbidden to talk too loudly in the courtroom.

The former Bosnian Serb military chief then accused Orie of not letting him speak and of “playing the prosecutor and the judge”, and was ordered to leave the courtroom.

“I have the right… Orie, you just pretend to be the judge,” Mladic retorted, suggesting that the judge was biased in favour of the prosecution.

Mladic was ejected during testimony from defence witness Simo Bilbija, former chief doctor at the Bosnian Serb Army General Staff hospital.

Bilbija, who participated under Mladic’s orders in the evacuation of the wounded after fighting in Srebrenica in April 1993, described the former Bosnian Serb general as a “courageous and honourable officer”.

During cross-examination, prosecutor Zec suggested to Bilbija that Bosnian Serb forces’ offensive in 1993 shepherded thousands of Bosniaks into the Srebrenica enclave, where many people had to live on the streets under the shelling with a shortage of basic necessities.

Bilbija confirmed that he knew about “combat operations” around Srebrenica and that he heard about a large number of refugees. A local doctor told him that there was “occasionally” a lack of water and medical supplies, but Bilbija said that the health centre in Srebrenica, which he visited, “looked like any other on the Serb side”.

Prosecutor Zec showed him a journalist’s film about the shelling of Srebrenica during the evacuation of the wounded, when two Canadian soldiers were wounded and one small boy died. Bilbija responded that the footage didn’t show the day when he was in Srebrenica.

The witness confirmed that he sent a letter of support to Mladic in September 1996, for the “troubles” that he was going through, but he denied that he was referring to the indictment for war crimes.

Asked by the prosecutor whether he still has “the same feeling of love and support to general Mladic”, Bilbija replied: “I sit here because of that.”

Mladic’s former bodyguard Zarko Cvijic also testified on Monday, calling his former boss “an honest man and officer, who didn’t get any benefits from the war”.

The trial continues on Tuesday.