As prosecution witness Nikola Popovic was testifying, Oric jumped from his chair and shouted that Popovic had "killed 2,000 people" and that he did not want a "criminal" testifying at his trial, Serbia's Beta news agency said.
Presiding Judge Carmel Agius tried to calm Oric down, ordering him to sit down and stop speaking because he had not been allowed to do so. Agius overruled defence counsel Vasvija Vidovic's request for a break.
Given that Oric kept repeating that Popovic had "killed 2,000 people," Judge Agius said he risked being handcuffed or ordered out of the courtroom. Two guards sitting next to Oric did not intervene.
After Oric calmed down and Popovic finished testifying, defence counsel John Jones said the defendant's reaction was the result of his sensitivity to the genocide committed against his people in Srebrenica in July 1995, when Bosnian Serbs killed more than 7,800 captive Muslims.
Cross-examining Popovic, defence counsel Vidovic said that he had taken part in the Srebrenica massacre in his capacity as a military policeman. The witness refuted this but confirmed that he was at a UN base in Potocari in that capacity on 13 July 1995 when Muslim men were separated from women and children.
Oric is charged with arson and plunder in a number of Serb villages around Srebrenica in 1992-3 and with the unlawful arrest, torture and killing of seven Serbs.