The judge has granted Trbic's permission to defer his plea to charges of planning, instigating, ordering and otherwise aiding and abetting in the preparing and executing of an organised mass execution of more than 7,000 detained Bosnian Muslim men from the Srebrenica "safe area" from July 11 to November 1, 1995.
The indictment says that on July 14, 1995, outside a school in the village of Orahovac, Trbic "assisted in loading the Muslim detainees onto the trucks to the execution sites and assisted in the executions by shooting Muslim men with his rifle. Approximately 1,000 Bosnian Muslim males were killed".
Trbic surrendered to the tribunal on April 7 this year. The circumstances of his surrender are not clear because his transfer to the tribunal's custody was not organised by the Serbian government.
Over the last month the Serbian government has transferred 13 war crimes indictees to The Hague, providing them with financial incentives or otherwise encouraging them to surrender voluntarily.