Former Bosnian Serb military commander Ratko Mladic said he defended his people and his country in the Bosnia war and now intended to defend himself against war crimes charges at the U.N.'s Yugoslavia tribunal.

"I defended my people, my country ... now I am defending myself," a defiant Mladic told the court. "I just have to say that I want to live to see that I am a free man."

The 100-minute court hearing ended shortly after, Reuters reported

Mladic was indicted over the 43-month siege of the Bosnian capital Sarajevo and the massacre of 8,000 Muslim men and boys in the town of Srebrenica, close to the border with Serbia, during the 1992-95 Bosnian war.