The former commander of Muslim forces in the Bosnian town of Srebrenica pleaded not guilty today to war crimes charges over atrocities against Serb civilians during the Bosnian war.
"Your honour, sirs, not guilty," Naser Oric, 36, replied calmly as six counts of murder, cruel treatment, wanton destruction and plunder were read out to him.
He is the first Muslim to be indicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) for atrocities against Serb civilians in Srebrenica but his alleged crimes are not connected to the 1995 massacre of Muslim by Bosnian Serb forces there.
Oric, who appeared in court flanked by two burly UN security guards, was arrested by NATO forces in Bosnia last Thursday and transferred to the tribunal the following day.
"I do not have anything to say," he added when the judge asked him if he wished to comment on his arrest or the conditions of his detention.
Oric defended the Muslim enclave of Srebrenica during the years that Bosnian Serb forces laid siege to the town in the first two years of the 1992-1995 war.
The Bosnian Serbs finally overran Srebrenica in July 1995 despite the presence of Dutch UN peacekeepers, and summarily executed over 7,000 Muslim men and boys in the worst single atrocity on European soil since World War II.
During the Bosnian Serb siege of Srebrenica the Muslim forces lead by Oric carried out many armed raids on Serb hamlets and villages around the city.
Oric is charged with wanton destruction in at least 50 predominantly Serb villages around the enclave, with the prosecution claiming he burnt Serb houses to the ground and plundered them causing thousands of Serbs to flee.
The Muslim commander has also been charged with seven murders and several cases of cruel treatment. According to the indictment Oric's military police held several Serbs in the Srebrenica police station in inhumane conditions.
The document cited a grisly example of a man who was beaten with iron bars and had his teeth forcibly removed with rusty pliers. In a final act of humiliation "a soldier urinated into his injured mouth," the document said.
The prosecution names seven Serb prisoners who did not survive the beatings with "wooden sticks, metal bars, baseball bats, rifle butts and bare fists".
Oric's arrest and transfer sparked outrage among the Bosnian Muslim survivors of the Srebrenica massacre who are bitter that the wartime Bosnian Serb leaders held mainly responsible for the worst single atrocity of the war are still at large.
Both Bosnian Serb political leader Radovan Karadzic and his military commander Ratko Mladic face charges of genocide specifically for the massacre and NATO has been under pressure, notably from UN prosecutors, to catch them.
Besides Karadzic and Mladic several other Bosnian Serbs have been indicted for the Srebrenica massacre, including general Radislav Krstic who was found guilty of genocide and sentenced to 46 years in prison.
AFP