INTERNATIONAL judges on Tuesday began a two-day appeal hearing in the case against Ratko Mladic, a former Bosnian Serb military commander who was sentenced to life in prison for the Srebrenica genocide and other war crimes, according to Agence France-Presse.

The appeal hearing before the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals (IRMCT) in The Hague has been adjourned on several occasions as the 78-year old underwent a surgical procedure and most recently due to the coronavirus pandemic.

More than 20 years after the war in which more than 100,000 people lost their lives and 2.2 million people were displaced, Mladic, who has been named  the "butcher from Bosnia", was convicted on ten counts, including genocide in Srebrenica, where Bosnian Serb military and police units killed about 8,000 Muslim men and boys in 1995.

The Mechanism took over the case after the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia and Rwanda was closed down.

The defence is expected to present its case first.

Mladić will have ten minutes to speak

Mladic himself will have ten minutes to speak on Wednesday, however it is still not certain whether he will physically be present in the courthouse or whether he will speak via videolink from the Scheveningen detention centre.

Mladic was removed from the courthouse in 2017 after he accused the trial chamber of lying.

Mladic's son has told AFP that Mladic did not have time to prepare his case due to his poor health and that he was not able to see his attorneys due to restricted communication.

Last week the trial chamber rejected yet another motion by Mladic seeking an extension of time to file his notice of appeal for health reasons.

In the conflict in Bosnia and Herzegovina that lasted from 1992 to 1995, about 100,000 people were killed and 2.2 million people were displaced.

Mladic was the military commander of the tripartite political leadership at the time, along with Yugoslavia's president Slobodan Milosevic and Bosnian Serb political leader Radovan Karadzic.

Video recordings presented during the trial show Mladic standing next to UN peace force from the Netherlands, convincing residents of Srebrenica that they would come to no harm even though his soldiers were preparing for the massacre.

He was arrested in 2011

The former general was arrested in 2011 after hiding for several years. Milosevic died in his cell in The Hague in March 2006 and Karadzic is currently serving a life sentence for genocide.

Both the prosecution and defence filed motions appealing the 2017 conviction, calling for an acquittal of the charge of genocide in six other municipalities in Bosnia and Herzegovina apart from Srebrenica.

The "Mothers of Srebrenica", a group of women related to the victims of the Srebrenica genocide, have been protesting outside the courthouse for years but due to the pandemic they will not be able to attend the appeal hearing.

"This is the first time we will not be part of such an important event in The Hague tribunal," Munira Subasic, the leader of the group, said.

She underlined that she hopes the hearing will not be adjourned again because the court "must not lose motivation and has to continue its mission."

"We hope that Mladic will be proclaimed guilty of genocide in other cities too, not just Srebrenica," Subasic said.