Mladic to face verdict over genocide during Bosnian War NEWS / BOSNIA 'THE BUTCHER OF BOSNIA' In 1992, Bosnian Serb army lays siege to Sarajevo, resulting in deaths of more than 11,500 people In 1995, army captures Srebrenica town, kill 8,000 Bosniaks who sought refuge there Both massacres headed by 'Butcher of Bosnia' Mladic, who was arrested in 2011 on charges of genocide and grave war crimes Mladic's final verdict due November 22, 2017 INFOGRAPHIC Timeline: Ratko Mladic's road to judgement by Adnan Rondic REPORTER’S NOTEBOOK Ratko Mladic: A symbol of the project of evil Srebrenica's bone hunter Bosnia SIGN UP A mural of former Bosnian Serb general Ratko Mladic is seen on a building in Gacko, Bosnia and Herzegovina November 8, 2017 [Dado Ruvic/ Reuters] Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina - UN war crimes judges at The Hague are expected to deliver Bosnian Serb military commander Ratko Mladic his verdict on Wednesday, more than 20 years after the Bosnian War ended. The verdict is set to begin at 9:00 GMT. Mladic, the 74-year-old dubbed the "Butcher of Bosnia", is accuse - including genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by his forces during the war in Bosnia from 1992 and 1995. One of his two genocide counts includes ordering the siege of Sarajevo, in which his troops surrounded the city for 46 months and carried out a campaign of sniping and shelling at the civilian population "aimed to spread terror amongst them"

With an average of 330 shells pummeling the city daily, more than 10,000 people were killed in what is known as the longest siege of a capital city in recent history. The second count of genocide he faces is for killing more than 8,000 Muslim men and boys in the town of Srebrenica, a UN-declared "safe haven" at the time. It was the worst genocide to occur on European soil since the Holocaust. "Just before a great Serb holy day, we give this town to the Serb nation," Mladic said to the camera, in a video filmed in Srebrenica on July 11, 1995. "After the uprising against the Turks, the time has finally come to take revenge against the Turks (Muslims) in this area." Another conversation between Mladic and a Serb artillery colonel in Sarajevo was publicised after it was intercepted and recorded in the spring of 1992. "Fire on Velesici and Pofalici [neighbourhoods]," Mladic ordered. "There aren't many Serbs there. Shell them so that they can't sleep. Make them lose their minds." Hundreds of thousands killed Mladic is additionally accused of removing Bosnian Muslim and Bosnian Croat inhabitants from Bosnia to establish a Greater Serbia and of taking UN peacekeepers hostage. An estimated 100,000 to 200,000 people were killed during the war in Bosnia, while as many as 50,000 women were raped. War crimes prosecutors from the International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia (ICTY) claim Mladic played a key role in the ethnic cleansing in Bosnia and have called for a life sentence. The Memorial Center in Potocari near Srebrenica [File: Dado Ruvic/Reuters] Prosecutors say Mladic, along with former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic and former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, were among the key players that formed the "joint criminal enterprise" to create a Greater Serbia. After 530 trial days, nearly 600 witnesses and nearly 10,000 exhibits admitted in evidence, Mladic's judgment is one of the most important since the ICTY first set up in 1993 and among the last case to be held as the court prepares to close in December. Mladic: Charges are obnoxious Mladic was arrested in May 2011 in a village in northern Serbia after 16 years in hiding. His health had already deteriorated at the time, with one of his arms paralysed due to a series of strokes. Mladic denies the charges, calling them "obnoxious" and "monstrous." At the start of his trial six years ago, Mladic made eye contact with Munira Subasic, a woman who lost 22 relatives to Bosnian Serb forces in Srebrenica and made a throat-slitting gesture as she watched on from the public gallery. "I defended my people, my country ... now I am defending myself," he reportedly told the judges at his first appearance. At his second appearance, he was reportedly removed from the courtroom for repeatedly interrupting the judge and trying to communicate with the public gallery. Many of the war criminals, either they weren't even indicted or prosecuted, or if they were prosecuted, their sentences were very short. MARKO ATTILA HOARE, HISTORIAN Due to his ailing health, he has prolonged his trial on several occasions. For the past two decades, the ICTY filed indictments against 161 people, most of them high-ranking Serb officials. The tribunal is the first court to charge an acting head of state (Milosevic) of genocide and other crimes.