Ratko Mladic from The Hague: I am alive and well and will live as long as our tribe is here

Prosecutors in The Hague yesterday asked the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Courts, during the appeals process in the case of former commander of the former Army of the Seeb Republic (VRS) Ratko Mladic, to reject the defense's appeal against the first instance verdict for alleged genocide in Srebrenica and crimes against humanity during the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina, that sentenced Mladic to life in prison.

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General Mladic also spoke during the appeals process, which took place via video link due to the coronavirus epidemic.

At the end of the appeals hearing before the Mechanism for Criminal Courts in The Hague, Mladic said that he is alive and well and that the indictment against him, which he considers to be a "child of NATO," would fail.

"I am alive and well and I will live as long as our tribe is here, while this indictment has fallen through," said Mladic during his ten-minute speech at the end of the hearing on the appeals filed against the verdict sentencing him to life imprisonment, Tanjug reports.

At the beginning of his address, he asked the Appeals Chamber to allow him to speak for 31 minutes instead of the scheduled 10, because, as he stated, he had something to say about every year since he had been pushed into the war, and speak not only on his own behalf but also for patriots and the Serb people, but the council did not accept this request.

He then continued, stating that he was and continues to be the target of NATO, and assessed that the indictment against him was "a child of NATO."

"Don't be offended, but this tribunal, of which I have a negative opinion, is a child of Western powers that have been blowing into the same balloon since the perestroika," Mladic said, among other things, at the end of the appeals hearing.

To the prosecutor who, as he said, showered him with "snake-like, devilish words" for two days, Mladic said, "What you are talking about is not me."

Ratko Mladic, Photo: Tanjug/AP

"Now I am in a position to defend myself, I am not defending myself, I am a man who has been a professional soldier all my life, I have often worked in peace and in war in accordance with the laws of my country, which was broken apart by NATO. Is it Ratko Mladic's fault that he did not allow the Ustasha monster to be throwing defenseless Serbs into the pit like in Jasenovac," the former VRS general asked, among other things.

He believes that the trial chamber, which, as he stated, sentenced him to life imprisonment, was not in the right, and assessed that those judges had a conflict of interest, because they "defended the Dutch battalion as well."

Srebrenica as the key to the trial

"Unlike all of you here, I was in Srebrenica, from July 9 to July 13. The camera followed me all the time through Srebrenica... On one occasion, a soldier from the 28th Light Division who had been left behind shot at me, but he missed. I carried a Heckler with me at the time and I told him to stop, but I did not retaliate, nor did I allow security to shoot, because he was wearing a UN vest," Mladic said.

Saying that Srebrenica is the key to this trial, Mladic told the appeals chamber that it was "a Nemanjic town, from which gold and silver was extracted" and that Dragutin Nemanjic built many monasteries there.

During the former Yugoslavia, there was no army or paramilitaries there, he added, noting that he had not entered Srebrenica, Zepa or Gorazde since the war.

"Ratko Mladic did not start the war, nor did he make a plan to attack Yugoslavia," said Mladic, after which his address was interrupted, but he managed to add, "I am alive and well and I will live as long as our tribe is here, while this indictment has fallen through."

Before Mladic's address, his defense attorney, US lawyer Dragan Ivetic told the court that Mladic was suffering from several diseases and that he did not know what medications he had received yesterday, but that he failed to take medication at 6 pm due to the tight schedule of this two-day hearing.

"I have doubts about his mental ability and I am not sure that he understands the consequences of this hearing and of his statements, since his illness also affects his speech," Ivetic warned the appeals chamber.

Mladic's address ended the two-day hearing on the appeals, and Judge Prisca Nyambe announced that the verdict would be passed "in a timely manner."

(Telegraf.rs)