"Your Honour, I plead not guilty," Borovcanin repeated as pre-trial judge Jean Claude Antonetti read each of the six counts of the indictment.
He is charged with complicity in genocide, extermination, persecution on racial, religious or political grounds, murder and forcible transfer of the population, which qualify as crimes against humanity, and with one count of murder as a violation of the laws and customs of war.
Borovcanin, 45, participated in the attack on the UN-protected Muslim enclave of Srebrenica as deputy commander of the Bosnian Serb Interior Ministry's Special Police Brigade. On 10 July 1995 he was appointed commander of a joint force of Interior Ministry units in the operation.
The indictment says that he "committed, planned, instigated, ordered, and/or otherwise aided and abetted in the planning, preparation, and execution of these charged crimes" and that he took part in a joint criminal enterprise led by Bosnian Serb commander General Ratko Mladic and other members of the Bosnian Serb military and police, whose implementation resulted in the summary execution of more than 7,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys from Srebrenica.