The trial of Ratko Mladic, the former military commander of the Bosnian Serbs charged with genocide and war crimes during the 1992-95 Bosnian war, could begin by March 2012.

Speaking at an ICTY hearing monitoring the progress of the Mladic case, presiding Judge Alphons Orie said he has scheduled opening statements in the trial for March 27, although he stressed “nothing is written in stone.”

Both Mladic and his lawyer objected to the date. “Our team is absolutely not prepared to proceed with the trial, not even close to those deadlines,” said defence counsel Branko Lukic, who noted that the former general hasn’t finished putting his defense team together yet.

“Maybe you’re in a hurry,” added Mladic, addressing the bench. “I’m not. For me, time is of no consequence.”

Mladic has been sitting in a jail cell in The Hague since he was arrested in Serbia last May after being on the run for 16 years. This is his first court appearance since October—he missed a scheduled hearing last month due to ill heath—but it wasn’t without the drama that typically follows in his wake.

New charges

He entered the courtroom wearing a suit and hunting cap, the latter of which Judge Orie asked him to remove. After much loud talking to his lawyer off mike and finger-pointing by Mladic, followed by reprimands from Judge Orie to stop using his body language and gestures to communicate (again) to the public gallery, Mladic removed his cap, revealing a head of wispy grey hair beneath.

Mladic was then asked to enter pleas to six additional counts—including genocide, extermination and murder—concerning the killing of more than 30 Muslims in the Bosnian town of Bisina in July 1995. The new charges, included in the prosecution’s recently amended indictment, fall under the category of “organized killings” in Srebrenica, the site of the worst massacre in Europe since World War Two. More than 7,000 Muslim men and boys were killed in one week in July in what’s already been ruled by this court a genocide.

When Judge Orie asked Mladic if he wanted the not guilty plea already entered on his behalf to extend to the six new counts, Mladic said he had no idea what Bisina is.

“Is it a mountain? A river? A bridge?” he asked the bench. “Is it a moveable feature, a bus, a truck, a plane, a helicopter? What is Bisina?... Please tell me.” After Judge Orie informed him it is a place where some 30 Bosnian Muslim men were killed on 23 July 1995, Mladic said he is not guilty. “I had nothing to do with it. Not with the place, not with the date, not with Bisina.”

Not guilty

It’s the first time Mladic has responded to the charges against him. After initially refusing to enter pleas to the 11 overall counts against him--including genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity for his part in the war that left some 100,000 people dead--judges entered not guilty pleas for him in July.

Just last week, judges granted the prosecution’s request to reduce the number of crimes in Mladic's indictment to 106 from 196, hoping to speed up the trial and avoid a repeat of what happened in the case of Slobodan Milosevic, the former Yugoslav president who died in custody in 2006 before a verdict could be reached in his trial.

There’s been much speculation about the former general’s health and how fit he is to appear in court, and even Mladic said Thursday that he’s lost 24 kilos in the past year. But Judge Orie seemed to quash that debate, citing an expert medical report the chamber recently received. “There is no need at this time to order further medical examinations or take further steps in this regard,“ said Orie. He also said there is no health reason why Mladic can’t wear handcuffs while being transported between the detention centre and the Tribunal.

Court went into private session to discuss, among other things, the issues surrounding Mladic’s defense team, or as Mladic called them, “the barricades” to completing his defense.

Mladic ended the proceedings by telling Judge Orie he was “sorry for every innocent person that got killed on any side in the conflict in the former Yugoslavia,” and he asked for the names and ethnicities of every one of them. “For the sake of truth and justice,” said the former general, “I never want to hear the word ‘war’ again.”