Ex-Bosnian Serb General Ratko Mladic has called the charges against him 'monstrous' and 'obnoxious', as he faces the UN war crimes tribunal for the first time.

The sixty-nine year old, who claims he is 'gravely ill', says he will not enter a plea at The Hague.

He is charged with atrocities during the 1992-95 Bosnian war, including the massacre of nearly eight thousand Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica