Mladic blasts genocide court as ‘child of Nato’

Former Bosnian Serb military chief Ratko Mladic said Wednesday he had been "pushed into war" and dismissed a UN court as a "child of western powers" in a dramatic end to his appeal against his conviction for genocide. Mladic -- dubbed the "Butcher of Bosnia" -- is appealing his 2017 life sentence for genocide for overseeing the 1995 Srebrenica massacre of some 8,000 Muslim men and boys, and for war crimes and crimes against humanity in general during the 1992-95 Bosnian war. The former general was found guilty of orchestrating a campaign of "ethnic cleansing" to drive Muslims and Bosnians out of key areas to create a Greater Serbia as Yugoslavia tore itself apart after the fall of communism. Angered when the judge cut him off after his allotted 10 minutes instead of giving him half an hour as he had requested, Mladic muttered: "This indictment has gone down the drain." Judges will give their decision at a later date.