( CNN ) -- From the day of his capture , Ratko Mladic has been as combative in custody as he was as a battlefield commander during the bloody civil war that ripped apart Yugoslavia two decades ago and saw the worst slaughter in Europe since Nazi rule . Mladic , 70 , is accused of orchestrating a horrific campaign of ethnic cleansing that included the massacre of 8,000 Muslims in the Bosnian town of Srebrenica . The former Bosnian Serb general has been indicted on 11 counts of genocide , war crimes and crimes against humanity in the 1992-95 war that killed 200,000 people and displaced another 2.2 million people from their homes . On Monday , his lawyers filed a petition to delay his trial by six months , contending the prosecution failed to share evidence in a timely manner and that the presiding Dutch judge was biased because of his role in other trials of Serbs . The court , however , said the trial is set to open as scheduled on Wednesday morning . Mladic will face his accusers at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague , Netherlands . Among those in the courtroom will be the families of Srebrenica victims . `` Victims have waited nearly two decades to see Ratko Mladic in the dock , '' said Param-Preet Singh , senior counsel in the International Justice Program at Human Rights Watch . `` His trial should lay to rest the notion that those accused of atrocity crimes can run out the clock on justice . '' 2001 : Ratko Mladic captured . Mladic 's trial begins after a landmark war crimes ruling last month , when another international tribunal found former Liberian President Charles Taylor guilty of aiding and abetting war crimes in neighboring Sierra Leone 's notoriously brutal civil war . `` Both trials are evidence of the growing international trend to hold perpetrators of atrocities to account , no matter how senior their position , '' Human Rights Watch said . Mladic eluded authorities for nearly 16 years until his capture last May , when police burst into the garden of a small house in northern Serbia . Europe 's highest-ranking war crimes suspect was discovered standing against a wall in a utility room normally used for storing farm equipment , according to a government minister . Though he was carrying two handguns , he surrendered without a fight . He was extradited for trial in the Netherlands . But from day one in custody , he has exhibited defiance and appears not to have relinquished his visceral antagonism toward his enemies . He drew a finger across his throat in court , a gesture aimed at some of the Srebrenica widows . At other times , he disrupted proceedings by putting on a hat in the courtroom and refusing to enter a plea . He has sought delays in his trial and said he is in failing health . But come Wednesday , Mladic 's long-awaited trial is set to start . In July 1995 , Mladic was in command of the Bosnian Serb Army and led his soldiers into the town of Srebrenica . In the days that followed , the soldiers systematically slaughtered nearly 8,000 Muslim men and boys . Mladic was dubbed the `` Butcher of Bosnia . '' Bosnia peace negotiator Richard Holbrooke once described Mladic as `` one of those lethal combinations that history thrusts up occasionally -- a charismatic murderer . '' In the three decades leading up to the violent splintering of Yugoslavia , Mladic rose rapidly through the ranks of the Yugoslav army . In 1991 , he served as a front-line commander spearheading Serb forces in a yearlong war with Croatia . By the time he took to Bosnia 's battlefields , he had become a hero to many Serbs , seen as a defender of their dwindling fortunes . In May 1992 , Bosnia 's Serbian political leaders picked him to lead the assault on their Muslim enemies who clamored for independence . Mladic wasted no time galvanizing his heavily armed forces in a siege of Sarajevo , cutting the city off from the outside world . Serb forces pounded the city every day from higher ground positions , trapping Sarajevo 's ill-prepared citizens in the valley below . More than 10,000 people , mostly civilians , perished . Some observers conjured images of Sarajevo in describing Syrian attacks on the besieged city of Homs earlier this year . As the war ended in the fall of 1995 , Mladic went on the run . Shortly after Mladic was sent to The Hague last year , authorities nabbed former Croatian Serb rebel leader Goran Hadzic . He was the last Yugoslav war crimes suspect at large . Bosnian Serb wartime leader Radovan Karadzic was arrested in 2008 . And Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic was arrested in 2001 but died before his trial could be completed .
Bosnian Serb Ratko Mladic 's lawyers sought to disqualify the presiding judge . But the trial will open as scheduled Wednesday . Ex-general was indicted on 11 counts of genocide , war crimes and crimes against humanity . Nearly 8,000 Muslim men and boys were slaughtered in Srebrenica .