Bosnian Serb ex-army chief Ratko Mladic's defence case has opened at the Yugoslav war crimes court, with one of his officers insisting his forces acted in self defence during the bloody siege of Sarajevo.
Mile Sladoje on Monday told the three-judge panel at the International Criminal Tribunal(ICTY), where Mladic faces charges of genocide and crimes against humanity, his troops "never were snipers" during the notorious 1990s siege in which 10,000 people died.
"All our activities (in Sarajevo) were defence activities," Sladoje said in a statement read by Mladic's lawyer Miodrag Stojanovic before questioning began.
"There were standing orders, fire could only be returned in response to enemy fire," said Sladoje, an assistant logistics commander in the Bosnian Serb Army, who was saluted by Mladic as he walked into the courtroom.
Dubbed the "Butcher of Bosnia", Mladic, 72, faces 11 charges ranging from hostage-taking to genocide for his role in Bosnia's brutal 1992-95 conflict following the break-up of the former Yugoslavia.
Around 100,000 people were killed and 2.2 million others left homeless in the brutal conflict which included some of the worst atrocities committed in Europe since World War II.
Mladic is charged with involvement in the slaughter of almost 8000 Muslim men and boys at Srebrenica in July 1995 and the 44-month siege of the Bosnian capital Sarajevo.
He is accused of a "campaign of terror" against Sarajevo's civilians by indiscriminate shelling and employing snipers during the siege, in which thousands of civilians died.
But Sladoje, referring to an incident in Sarajevo when a teenage girl was shot by a sniper, denied there were snipers among his troops or that they had sniper weapons.
"We had normal infantry weapons, we never had snipers or such rifles," Sladoje said.
Mladic, in a black suit and tie and white shirt, listened attentively as Sladoje spoke.
At Srebrenica, Mladic's forces are accused of overrunning lightly armed Dutch UN troops protecting the supposedly safe enclave, before murdering the men and boys and dumping their bodies into mass graves.
He has also been charged for taking hostage a group of over 200 United Nations peacekeepers during the conflict, keeping them in strategic locations as "human shields" against NATO air strikes.
Presiding Judge Alphons Orie has given Mladic's lawyers 207 hours to question witnesses - the same amount of time given to the prosecution, who finished their case earlier this year, the ICTY said in a statement.
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