The Hague, Netherlands, June 3: Former Bosnian Serb military chief Gen. Ratko Mladic told a United Nations war crimes court that he is "a gravely ill man".
Mladic refused to enter pleas to "obnoxious charges" alleging he orchestrated the worst atrocities of a war that claimed 100,000 lives.
Closing his arraignment, he told Presiding Judge Alphons Orie on Friday: "I defended my people and my country" during the Bosnian war.
Mladic said he wants to "live to see that I am a free man."
Asked by Presiding Judge Alphons Orie if he understood his rights as a suspect at the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal at The Hague, Mladic said Friday he was gravely ill and needed more time to understand the charges.
Mladic did not immediately elaborate on his illness.
He gruffly told Orie he did not want "a single letter or sentence" of his indictment read in court.
Orie nevertheless started reading a summary of the indictment. AP
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