THE HAGUE - A former Bosnian Serb army officer pleaded not guilty Wednesday to a charge of crimes against humanity over his alleged key role in the July 1995 Srebrenica massacre of nearly 8,000 Muslims.
"Your honour, I'm not guilty," Milorad Trbic told the UN special court in The Hague for the former Yugoslavia.
Trbic, 47, had first appeared before judges in April shortly after surrendering to the court, when he had asked for time to consider his plea on the charge of murders amounting to a crime against humanity.
According to prosecutors, he was an officer in the Zvornik brigade of the Bosnian Serb army and prepared and participated in the massacre, notably by loading Muslim men onto trucks to be driven to the execution site and killing some of them with his own weapon.
Trbic is also alleged to have been responsible for the execution of 20 men outside a village school in Orahovac, near Srebrenica in eastern Bosnia.
He is named on the same UN indictment as former Bosnian Serb general Vinko Pandurevic, who faces genocide charges for the Srebrenica killings.
Eight generals and officers indicted for the massacre have been transferred to the UN court in the past six months although the two main suspects, Bosnian Serb wartime leaders Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic, remain at large.
Five of the eight are accused of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes, while the other three face only the latter two charges.
05/11/2005 15:08 GMT