"Not guilty", repeated the 65-year-old Beara after the reading of each of the six counts of the indictment which charges him, apart from genocide and complicity in genocide, with the extermination, killing, persecution and deportation of Muslims from the eastern Bosnian UN safe haven.
He is charged, in his capacity as the security chief of the Bosnian Serb army's general staff, with being one of the main organisers of the liquidation of more than 7,800 Muslims committed by Serb forces between 12 and 19 July, 1995, after they took over Srebrenica.
As security chief in charge of prisoners of war, Beara was responsible for all Muslim prisoners and helped in implementing and controlling the liquidations, the indictment reads.
Two other Serb indictees, officer Momir Nikolic and the head of the Serb Democratic Party branch in Bratunac, Miroslav Deronjic, mentioned Beara as one of the key participants in the Srebrenica genocide.
Serbian authorities transferred Beara to the tribunal on October 10, claiming that he had surrendered voluntarily, while the ICTY prosecution insists that he was arrested after chief prosecutor Carla del Ponte informed Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica of Beara's whereabouts.
Beara is the only indictee extradited this year by Kostunica's government, which is why Serbia and Montenegro has been constantly criticised by the tribunal and the international community.
At his initial appearance before the tribunal on October 12, Beara was the first indictee to call on his indicted compatriots to surrender. He then used the opportunity to enter his plea in 30 days.
At his second appearance on November 9, defence counsel moved for a two-day deferral due to the failure of chief defence attorney John Ostojic, an American of Serb origin, to show up.
Prosecutor Peter McClosky then announced that he would submit an amended indictment in two weeks' time.
A former commander of the Serb army's Drina Corps, General Radislav Krstic, has been sentenced by the ICTY for the Srebrenica genocide to 35 years in prison.