THE HAGUE (AFP) -- Bosnian Serb ex-general Zdravko Tolimir went on trial for genocide Friday over the killings of thousands of Muslims as part of a grand scheme to create a “mono-ethnic Serb state”.

“This case is about Zdravko Tolimir's choice to forsake his duty to abide by the laws of war in pursuit of a mono-ethnic Serb state and ultimately to take part in and lead organized brutality,” prosecutor Nelson Thayer told judges of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY).
Tolimir took part in an “unrelenting” plan to expel Muslims from the Srebrenica and Zepa enclaves, “by making their lives so unbearable that they had no hope for survival there,” Thayer said.
Tolimir “assisted, supervised and authorized the detention, execution and burial of thousands of Muslim men and boys,” the prosecutor told the court in The Hague.
The 61-year-old ex-general's trial, the last to start of an accused in the custody of the tribunal, had been delayed numerous times due to his ill health.
Tolimir was one of seven deputy commanders to wartime Bosnian Serb army chief Ratko Mladic, still wanted by the tribunal 15 years after he was indicted.
“Mladic relied on General Tolimir to help him carry out the slow strangling of the enclaves of Srebrenica and Zepa in order to create those conditions, those inhuman conditions, that would later force the Muslim population to give up hope of survival,” said Thayer.
Tolimir, arrested on May 31, 2007 in Bosnia-Hercegovina, is accused of committing genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity between July and November 1995. He was responsible for the Bosnian Serb army's intelligence and security at the time.
The crimes charged against him include the 1995 Srebrenica massacre of more than 7,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys.
“General Tolimir did oversee and authorize the officers who organized and directed the slaughter of those 7,000 men and boys,” the prosecutor said.
“It was his men ... who were at the detention and execution and burial sites, making sure that that murder operation did its evil work until the last bullet was fired and the last body buried.
Tolimir has pleaded not guilty and has chosen to conduct his own defense.
He crossed himself as he entered the courtroom on Friday, and said at the opening of his trial: “May God bless you all”.
Ex-general Radislav Krstic, another Mladic aide and the first person to be convicted of genocide by the court, was sentenced to 35 years in jail in 2004, including for the Srebrenica massacre.