Mladic to 'boycott war crimes court'

The 69-year-old will not attend his second plea hearing at The Hague because his own defence lawyers have not yet been appointed, Milos Saljic said.

"Mladic is not going to appear in the courtroom unless he is forced to. He does not want to do it because he does not have his team of lawyers yet," he said.

Court-appointed lawyer Aleksandar Aleksic - who represented Gen Mladic at his first hearing - is due to represent him on Monday.

It is considered unlikely the tribunal would force Mladic to appear, and if confronted with an empty dock, or even if he does attend and refuses to enter a plea, judge Alphons Orie is likely to enter a plea of not guilty on Mladic's behalf.

Arrested in May and extradited to The Hague after 16 years on the run, Mladic defiantly rejected war crimes charges against him as "obnoxious" and "monstrous" when he was formally charged at the Yugoslavia war crimes court last month.
Mladic is accused over the 43-month siege of the Bosnian capital Sarajevo and the massacre of 8,000 Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica - Europe's worst massacre since World War Two.

Mladic, who has said he is a "gravely ill" man, is no longer in the prison hospital and now plays chess with other detainees.

He argued last month he only defended his country and people.