"I am not guilty," Nikolic said repeatedly as Judge Liu Daqun read all six counts of the indictment charging him with genocide, complicity in genocide, extermination, murder, persecution and forcible transfer of the Muslim population of Srebrenica after July 11, 1995 when this small eastern Bosnian town was overrun by Bosnian Serb forces.
The indictment says that more than 7,000 male Muslim prisoners, aged from 16 to 60, were systematically killed in Nikolic's area of responsibility, while women and children were forcibly transferred to the nearby municipality of Kladanj, which was under the control of Bosnian government forces.
Nikolic is charged with involvement in a joint criminal enterprise with other Bosnian Serb senior military officers and political leaders. He has been in the tribunal's custody since March 17 this year, after he voluntarily surrendered to the authorities in Serbia.