Former Bosnian Serb army commander Ratko Mladic faces judges at the United Nations war crimes tribunal in The Hague on Friday to answer charges of genocide in the Bosnia war.
Once a burly and intimidating figure on the battlefield, Mladic now looks frail and older than his 69 years.
Mladic faces the special court's gravest charge, that of genocide for the 1995 Srebrenica massacre of 8,000 Muslim men and boys and for the 43-month siege of Sarajevo from 1992 to 1995 in which some 12,000 people were killed.
"I came here today to see if his eyes are still bloody," said Munira Subasic, whose 18-year-old son and husband were both killed by Serb forces in Srebrenica.
"In 1995 I begged him to let my son go. He listened to me and promised to let him go. I trusted him at that moment. Sixteen years later, I am still searching for my son's bones."
Mladic was arrested last week in a Serbian village and extradited by Serbia on Tuesday, to become the tribunal's biggest case. His capture came nearly 16 years after The Hague issued its indictment against him.
A career soldier, Mladic was branded "the butcher of the Balkans" in the late 1990s for a ruthless campaign to seize and "ethnically cleanse" territory for Serbs following the break-up of the Serb-dominated Yugoslav federation of six republics.
Serb nationalists believe Mladic defended the nation and did no worse than Croat or Bosnian Muslim army commanders, as the federation was torn apart in five years of conflict that claimed some 130,000 lives, destroying towns and villages.
"Mladic didn't look like a cold-blooded murderer when I spoke to him at the time," said Subasic.
LONG TRIAL
The International Tribunal for former Yugoslavia, set up in 1993, expects to wind up its work by 2014. It has issued 161 indictments and has now accounted for all but one fugitive.
Serbs say the fact that two-thirds of them were Serbian is proof of the court's bias. Hague prosecutors say it is a reflection of which side carried out the biggest war crimes.
The court has also been criticised for the slowness of its trials which can take up to four years.
"That is the bigger concern — whether they will finish this process," said lawyer Axel Hagedorn who represents the Mothers of Srebrenica in a lawsuit against the Dutch state.
"It's very important that the main suspect in this genocide will be sentenced. Otherwise all these nationalists will say 'well he was never sentenced'."
Mladic spent the night in a prison hospital bed under medical supervision, his lawyer in The Hague said.
"He has not had proper health care for years and his condition is not good," said Aleksandar Aleksic, a prominent Belgrade lawyer appointed by the tribunal on Thursday to represent Mladic, whom he met the same day.
The tribunal said medical supervision for a newly arrived detainee was normal routine.
Aleksic, tribunal officials, and diplomats who met the general on his arrival described Mladic as frail but mentally capable and responsive.
He will have an opportunity in court to talk about his health and about conditions in detention, the lawyer added.
Serbian media reports say Mladic is unlikely to enter a plea on Friday. Under the rules of the war crimes tribunal, he can defer that step for 30 days, a court spokeswoman confirmed.
For most of his years at large, Mladic managed to live discreetly and safely in Belgrade, relying on loyal supporters who consider him a war hero, not a war criminal.
But as pressure mounted on Serbia to arrest and extradite him, or watch its bid for European Union membership wither, Mladic's network of support apparently dwindled.
