Ratko Mladic
Former Bosnian Serb commander Ratko Mladic appears in court at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in the Hague, June 3, 2011. Mladic appeared on Friday before the Yugoslav war crimes court to hear charges of genocide over the 1992-95 Bosnian war. REUTERS/Martin Meissner/Pool

Obnoxious and monstrous words is what former Bosnian Serb military commander Ratko Mladic called the charges against him, declining to enter a plea at the Yugoslavia war crimes court, reported Reuters on Friday.

Mladic is accused of a 43-month siege of the Bosnian capital Sarajevo and the massacre of 8,000 Muslim men and boys in the town of Srebrenica, close to the border with Serbia, during the 1992-95 Bosnian war. He has 30 days to enter a plea and said, he needed more than a month to study the charges against him, but Judge Alphons Orie scheduled a new hearing for July 4, the report stated.

Making a basketball hand signal for time out (a pause), Mladic asked to speak in private with his lawyer and Orie called a 10-minute recess, the report said.

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