Mladic could face two separate trials

The charges against wartime Bosnian Serb military commander, Ratko Mladic should be split in two trials, according to a request from prosecutors at the United Nations war crimes tribunal for the former Yugoslavia on Wednesday.

Mladic has been indicted on charges of genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, murder and persecution of non-Serbs during Bosnia’s 1992-1995 war. The 68-year-old general was arrested north of Belgrade on 26 May, after sixteen years on the run.

The charges centre on the massacre of some 8,000 Muslim men and boys in the eastern town of Srebrenica in July 1995 by forces under Mladic’s command and the 44-month siege and shelling of the capital, Sarajevo, in which up to 12,000 people were killed.

In a brief submitted to the court on Wednesday, chief prosecutor Serge Brammertz demanded that Mladic be tried first for the Srebrenica genocide and later for other crimes in a separate trial.