Mladic is accused of orchestrating not only the week-long massacre in Srebrenica, at the time a U.N. "safe haven", but also the 43-month siege of Sarajevo, in which more than 10,000 people were killed by snipers, machineguns and heavy artillery.

Mladic, now 70, appeared confident, flashing a thumbs-up and clapping his hands as he entered the courtroom in The Hague. Wearing a dark suit and tie, he sat, spectacles in hand, listening intently as prosecutors made their opening remarks.

Prosecutor Dermot Groome said Mladic and other Bosnian Serbs had divided the territory of the former Yugoslavia along ethnic lines and implemented a common plan to exterminate non-Serbs.

“The prosecution will present evidence that will show beyond a reasonable doubt the hand of Mr. Mladic in each of these crimes,” he said.

Mladic is the last of the main protagonists in the Balkan wars of the 1990s to go on trial at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague.

He is accused of orchestrating not only the week-long massacre in Srebrenica, at the time a U.N. “safe haven”, but also the 43-month siege of Sarajevo, in which more than 10,000 people were killed by snipers, machineguns and heavy artillery.

The list of charges stemming from his actions as the Serb military commander in the Bosnian war of 1992-95 ranges from genocide to murder, acts of terror and other crimes against humanity.

But Mladic, who was arrested last May after 16 years on the run, has dismissed the charges as “monstrous” and says he is too ill to stand trial. The court entered a “not guilty” plea on his behalf.

The case has inevitably stirred up violent emotions in the Balkans. Survivors watching earlier proceedings from the court gallery have shouted “Murderer!” and “Killer!” at a man nicknamed the “Butcher of Bosnia”.

Mladic has been angry and defiant during pre-trial hearings, heckling the judge, shouting and interrupting the proceedings.

“The whole world knows who I am,” he told a hearing last year. “I am General Ratko Mladic. I defended my people, my country … now I am defending myself.”

Mladic was in charge of the Bosnian Serb army when, over several days in July 1995, Serb fighters overran the Srebrenica enclave in eastern Bosnia, theoretically under the protection of Dutch U.N. peacekeepers.

Video footage shot at the time showed Mladic mingling with Muslim prisoners.

Shortly afterwards, the men and boys were separated from the women, stripped of identification, and shot.

BULLDOZED INTO GRAVES

The dead were bulldozed into mass graves, then later dug up with excavators and hauled away in trucks to be better hidden from the world, in dozens of remote mass graves.

Prosecutors say Mladic was part of a “joint criminal enterprise to eliminate the Bosnian Muslims in Srebrenica by killing the men and boys … and forcibly removing the women, young children and some elderly men”.

Mladic is also held responsible for the siege and bombardment of the Bosnian capital Sarajevo, which prosecutors said was intended to “spread terror among the civilian population”.

The horrors of the siege, together with the Srebrenica massacre, eventually galvanized world opinion in support of the campaign of Western air strikes on Bosnian Serb targets that brought the conflict to an end shortly after.

Mladic was indicted in 1995 along with Radovan Karadzic, the Bosnian Serbs’ political leader.

Yet both remained free in Serbia for more than a decade before being tracked down and sent to The Hague. Karadzic’s trial is already under way.

Defense lawyers say they have not had have enough time to review the huge case file prepared by prosecutors and asked for the trial to be postponed, but the request was denied.

Serge Brammertz, the court’s chief prosecutor, has dismissed Mladic’s assertion that he is too frail to sit through a 200-hour prosecution case involving testimony from 411 witnesses.

His appearance in The Hague is testament to the work of the tribunal, which has defied skeptics by managing, in the course of 19 years, to arrest all its 161 indictees.

But some victims still fear that Mladic, who has received physical therapy for a possible stroke, could escape judgment by dying in mid-trial.

Mladic’s mentor, former Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic, the architect of the Balkan wars, died in detention in 2006, a few months before a verdict in his trial for genocide and other war crimes in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo.

Libyan players celebrate with a Kingdom of Libya flag after winning against Mozambique during their 2012 African Cup of Nations qualifying soccer match at Petro Sport Stadium in Cairo.

The world football body tells The Associated Press that Egypt-Mozambique in Alexandria and Libya-Cameroon in Sfax, Tunisia will be behind closed doors. FIFA says the decision was taken by local authorities and football federations in those countries.

The ruling body also is reviewing security plans for Nigeria’s home game against Mozambique in the south-eastern city of Calabar. The match was to be played in Kaduna before bomb attacks there.

FIFA hasn’t yet decided if Mali-Algeria can go ahead in Mali after recent violence in the capital, Bamako.

Belhadj resigned on Monday from his post as head of the Tripoli Military Council, his aide said.

Abdel Hakim Belhadj, a former Islamist militant who helped topple Muammar Gaddafi in last year’s revolt, has considerable resources and a well-organized network of followers. His party could do well in the election on June 19 and give the 200-seat assembly, which will draft a constitution, a strong Islamist flavor.

“I registered my party yesterday, it is called Al Watan (homeland),” Belhadj told Reuters. “We have candidates in every Libyan city.”

Belhadj resigned on Monday from his post as head of the Tripoli Military Council, his aide said.

An electoral commission official confirmed his registration for Libya’s first free polls after 42 years of Gaddafi’s rule.

Belhadj is a former leader of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, which waged an insurgency against Gaddafi in the 1990s. He spent time with Islamist militants in Afghanistan, although he said he was not allied with Osama bin Laden’s al Qaeda.

He was captured, detained by British and U.S. intelligence services, and sent to Libya in 2004, where he was jailed. He renounced violence and was released from jail a few months before the uprising against Gaddafi.

After rebel fighters expelled Gaddafi’s forces from Tripoli, Belhadj became head of the Tripoli Military Council, a heavily armed force of about 25,000 men.

It was among the most powerful of the volunteer militias that have held real power in the vacuum left by Gaddafi’s downfall. In the past few months, though, it has ceded some functions to the newly created national police and army.

Belhadj ran the operation from a suite of rooms at the Radisson Hotel, overlooking Tripoli’s port. Initially he held meetings in camouflage fatigues, but later swapped those for a suit as he tried to re-model himself as a civilian leader.

Lawyers acting for Belhadj are suing the British government, its intelligence services and a former British foreign minister, over his transfer back to Libya in 2004.

Belhadj alleges that Britain colluded in his “rendition” from Malaysia, where he was arrested in 2004, to Libya, despite knowing he faced torture at home.

Manchester City won the English title for the first time in 44 years, surging past Queens Park Rangers 3-2 on Sunday with Sergio Aguero scoring his team’s second goal late in stoppage time.

Aguero, the son-in-law of Argentine great Diego Maradona, scored during the fourth minute of injury time, two minutes after substitute Edin Dzeko made it 2-2. The winning goal snatched the trophy from defending champion Manchester United on goal difference. Without Aguero’s startling goal, United would have won the title after its 1-0 victory over Sunderland moments earlier on the final day of the season.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen a finale like this,” City manager Roberto Mancini said. “We didn’t deserve to lose. We had a lot of chances and we deserved to win the game and championship. It’s fantastic for the club and the supporters after 44 years. It’s been a crazy season and a crazy last minute.”

It was the first time the English title was decided in such dramatic circumstances since 1989, when Arsenal and Liverpool finished even on points and had the same goal difference. Arsenal won the title on total goals.

“It’s a cruel way (to lose the title),” United manager Sir Alex Ferguson said. “We’ve experienced many ups and downs in the 25 years I’ve been here, most of them have been great, we’ve won the title three times on the last day, today we nearly did it.

“I’d like to say on behalf of Manchester United, congratulations to our neighbors — a fantastic achievement to win the Premier League.”

City won the title for the first time since 1968 after overturning the eight-point lead United held five weeks ago. The two Manchester rivals have traded places atop the standings all season, and continued to do so until the final minutes of the final day.

City took a 1-0 lead into halftime, but then went down 2-1 after the break despite QPR captainJoey Barton being sent off in the 55th, leaving his team with 10 men the rest of the way.

“I never stopped believing,” City captain Vincent Kompany said. “When Edin scored that goal, it reminded me of so many other moments during the season when we’ve done this before. There was no reason not to believe.

“It’s not sunk in yet. I don’t know what happened at the end, it was just a huge mess.”

Pablo Zabaleta put City in front in the 39th minute, but Djibril Cisse tied it for QPR three minutes into the second half after a misplay by Joleon Lescott. Lescott went to make a simple headed clearance but instead knocked the ball backward, and Cisse seized on the defender’s mistake by driving a shot past Joe Hart.

Barton was then sent off for elbowingCarlos Tevez, but Jamie Mackie managed to head the visitors in front in the 66th.

City’s expensively assembled squad had been facing its first loss at home since December 2010, but Dzeko sparked the recovery by heading in a corner kick in the second minute of stoppage time.

There was still time for one final moment of drama in an unpredictable season when Aguero drove home the winner. As the final whistle blew, thousands of City fans poured onto the field and blue smoke wafted around the stadium.

Winning the title is the result of more than a $1 billion of investment by Abu Dhabi’s Sheikh Mansour, who rescued a financially stricken club from ousted Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra in 2008.

“It was really important to start winning this championship,” Mancini said. “Manchester City can have a big future now.”

The field was covered in confetti from the start and all the action was in QPR’s half, although the hosts couldn’t find the goal against a relegation-threatened club.

Yaya Toure fired over and David Silva struck tamely at goalkeeper Paddy Kenny before news filtered through of Wayne Rooney putting 19-time champion United ahead at Sunderland and top of the standings.

QPR hasn’t won on the road since December, but it wasn’t all bad news for the London club — it avoided relegation after Bolton was held to a 2-2 draw at Stoke.

Champions Real Madrid beat Mallorca 4-1 yesterday to break the 100-point barrier on the final day of La Liga season as Villarreal sensationally slipped through the relegation trapdoor.

Mesut Ozil scored twice while Cristiano Ronaldo and Karim Benzema also hit the target as Jose Mourinho’s Real smashed Barcelona’s previous record of 99 points from the 2009-10 season.

The Santiago Bernabeu was given the first chance to celebrate Mourinho’s first Spanish title with ‘Los Blancos’ and resonated with a celebratory atmosphere to see skipper Iker Casillas lift the trophy after the match.

Mallorca needed a win to qualify for next season’s Europa League and battled hard against a Real side who claimed their 32nd Spanish title two games ago.

Ronaldo headed home an 18th-minute opener and two minutes later Benzema finished off a swift passing move after receiving a Ronaldo pass to double the lead.

Ozil produced a delightful chip for the third on 50 minutes before Chori Castro pulled one back for the side from the Balearics.

German international Ozil added his second when he guided home a long cross from Marcelo eight minutes later.

Jose Rondon scored the goal that beat Sporting Gijon 1-0 and guarantee Malaga their first ever qualification for the Champions League.

Defeat for Sporting means they drop into the second division after four successive seasons in the top flight.

The Andalusian side started the stronger and Juan Pablo in the visitors’ goal had to make an acrobatic save from Eliseu on 17 minutes.

Then Rondon hit the post with a powerful header and with the game goalless at the interval Malaga’s dream was on hold.

However, it was Rondon who headed home a corner on 49 minutes to ease the nerves and send the packed Rosaleda crowd into celebration.

Villarreal lost 0-1 at home to Atletico Madrid for whom Gustavo Falcao scored with two minutes remaining to condemn last season’s Europa League semi-finalists to the second-tier for the first time since 1998-99.

Marco Ruben and Marcos Senna went close from distance in a first-half in which the team battling relegation were the stronger.

All seemed under control until Falcao headed home and almost immediately a goal from Raul Tamudo for Rayo Vallecano at home to Granada turned things around completely.

Until that stage, Rayo Vallecano were in the relegation zone and 60 seconds from the drop.

At least 72 people, a third of them under the age of 18, were killed by Nato airstrikes, according to a report by Human Rights Watch – one of the most extensive investigations into the issue. The New York-based group called on the Western alliance to acknowledge the casualties and compensate those who survived.

The decision by the United States and its Nato allies to launch an air campaign that mainly targeted regime forces and military infrastructure marked a turning point in Libya’s civil war, giving rebels a fighting chance. But Muammar Gaddafi’s government and allies in Russia and China criticised the alliance for going beyond its UN mandate to protect civilians.

The number of Libyans killed or injured in airstrikes also emerged as a key issue in the war as Gaddafi’s regime frequently exaggerated figures and Nato refused to comment on most claims, insisting all targets were military.

At one point, Libya’s health ministry said 856 civilians had been killed in Nato’s campaign, which began in March 2011, weeks after the uprising against Gaddafi that erupted with peaceful protests evolved into a civil war. The UN-appointed International Commission of Inquiry on Libya said earlier this year that at least 60 civilians had been unintentionally killed and recommended further investigation.

In response, Nato Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said in March that the alliance had looked into all allegations of harm to civilians and determined that the sites struck were legitimate military targets and that “great care was taken in each case to minimise risk to civilians”.

Based on investigations conducted in Libya from August 2011 to the end of April 2012, Human Rights Watch established that 28 men, 20 women and 24 children had been killed in eight Nato bombings in Tripoli, Zlitan, Sorman, Bani Walid, Gurdabiya and Gaddafi’s hometown of Sirte. The group said it had documented several cases in which there was clearly no military target and criticised Nato for failing to acknowledge the deaths or to examine how and why they occurred.

In Brussels, Nato said it had carried out the bombing campaign with “unprecedented care and precision” and had fulfilled the requirements of international humanitarian law.

“Nato did everything possible to minimise risks to civilians but in a complex military campaign that risk can never be zero,” spokeswoman Oana Lungescu said. “We deeply regret any instance of civilian casualties for which Nato may have been responsible.

“We have reviewed all the information we hold as an organisation and confirmed that the specific targets struck by Nato were legitimate military targets.”

Spat at in public by a fellow Libyan who called him a thief, watching his back on long walks through Vienna, eating poorly; Muammar Gaddafi’s fugitive oil supremo was a troubled man in the months before he was found drowned in the Danube two weeks ago.

Just whom, or what, Shokri Ghanem feared may hold a key to his mysterious sudden death, just as he was under mounting pressure to reveal what he knew of suspect deals with foreign oil buyers that made billionaires of the late dictator’s family.

Ghanem, a former prime minister who ran Libya’s oil industry until he fled during last year’s civil war, was in negotiations when he died with the victorious former rebels to give evidence, a source close to those discussions in Tripoli told Reuters.

But Ghanem himself told Reuters in December, two months after Gaddafi was killed and shortly after his son Saif al-Islam was arrested, that he feared returning to Tripoli: “One man they were interviewing, they threw him out of the window,” he said.

Sitting in a Vienna hotel lobby, one eye on the door, fidgeting with his mobile phones and showing little of the easy charm and wit that made him many friends, he added: “If you’re successful, there’s always someone who wants to try to get you.”

Libyan Prosecutor General Abdelaziz al-Hasadi told Reuters on May 2 that he had a warrant for Ghanem to be “brought in”. But the oilman was regarded as a witness not a suspect, at least for the time being, would not necessarily be imprisoned and, Hasadi said, the warrant did not have force internationally.

As the holder of a European passport, Ghanem need also have had little fear of a rapid extradition to a country lacking a stable legal system – among his grateful energy clients, Silvio Berlusconi’s government granted him Italian citizenship under a presidential decree published in December 2008.

The Libyan government, struggling still to impose order on a country where rival militias hold great sway, has said little of the case beyond expressing surprise and noting, however, that Austrian police had found no evidence yet of any crime.

Police, and Ghanem’s family, say the Vienna murder squad has found nothing to contradict their view that the 69-year-old was probably taken ill, perhaps by a heart attack, while walking along the river near his home after dawn on Sunday, April 29 – though tests for toxins may take weeks yet to complete.

Yet since Ghanem died, dozens of conversations with family friends, neighbours, former colleagues in Tripoli and officials who knew Ghanem through the three decades he was a senior figure at OPEC headquarters in Vienna, have built up a picture of man who was under mounting stress and concerned for his wellbeing.

“DEPRESSED”

One saw him recently flanked by bodyguards, though he gave up police protection soon after he fled Libya for a city where he felt at home and where he began a new business. Others spoke of his ostracism by a Libyan expatriate community that once held him in some esteem but now felt free to denounce him as a stooge of a corrupt regime; an incident at Vienna airport this year, when a Libyan spat on him, bruised his spirit, friends said.

“He seemed depressed of late,” said one man who worked with Ghanem in Libya and kept in touch. “He wasn’t eating properly.” Like most friends who spoke of him, he did not want to be named.

An oil industry colleague who had coffee with Ghanem last month also found him anxious – notably over the Libyan government’s summons for him to testify about dubious deals: “He was very sad about this,” he said. “He was under great stress.”

Did that lead to a seizure which caused him to fall into the river? Or become so intolerable that Ghanem, a non-swimmer, took his own life by jumping in? Or did the stress betray a fear that powerful interests might silence him forever with a deadly push?

Police found no suicide note and accidental drowning seems, to some, a freakish coincidence. So it may be no surprise that in a city steeped in international intrigue, from the cinematic Cold War underworld of “The Third Man” to Carlos the Jackal’s OPEC hostage taking of 1975, talk of murder dies hard:

“It was a professionally executed crime,” concluded Noman Benotman, a prominent Libyan analyst and long-time opponent of Gaddafi who conceded he lacked any hard evidence. “It is the global energy mafia. It’s to do with corruption, secret deals. People wanted to make sure he is not around any more to talk.”

CONFIDANT

Ghanem, who took a doctorate at Boston and won international respect as OPEC’s head of research in the 1990s, befriended Saif al-Islam when the younger Gaddafi studied in Vienna. Friends say Ghanem worked on the son’s dissertation. He was then summoned to be Libyan economy minister in 2001 and was prime minister from 2003. At the time, Saif al-Islam was leading efforts to exploit new oil export markets opened by a lifting of Western sanctions.

That intimacy with the Gaddafis, who made Ghanem chairman of the National Oil Corporation (NOC) in 2006, gave him influence and possibly wealth – though there was little showy in the life he led in his last year, taking long walks, riding streetcars, meeting old friends for coffee and watching films and soccer on television with his youngest daughter Aya at the spacious, 20th floor apartment he owned near Vienna’s United Nations complex.

But life with the Gaddafis also brought troubles for a man widely seen abroad as a competent and honest technocrat; he resigned from the NOC in 2009, in protest, colleagues and diplomats say, at demands from the Gaddafi clan, for cash. Yet he swallowed his pride and quickly returned to work, quitting again only last May as rebel forces drove across the desert.

What Ghanem knew about the Gaddafis’ alleged use of the NOC as a private bank and of the whereabouts of billions in untraced money would be valuable to prosecutors trying Saif al-Islam and others, and might have brought cash back to state coffers.

For those who suspect shadowy figures, from fugitive Gaddafi clansmen to Italian mafiosi, of seeking to silence Ghanem, his apparent willingness to talk may have influenced his demeanour.

Amer Albayati, an Iraqi writer and neighbour who would take walks with Ghanem, said he was wary: “Whenever he saw Arab men he got very cautious.” Albayati mimed for Reuters how Ghanem would at times stop and slouch against a tree – letting him see who was around, without overtly looking back over his shoulder.

Others, however, offer less melodramatic insights; Nihal Goonewardene, a Washington-based friend since graduate school days at Tufts University, said that some days before Ghanem died he had told a mutual friend that he had undergone medical tests and was concerned about getting bad results.

Daughter Aya, who is in her 20s, told police her father felt unwell as they watched television on the night before he died.

Others cite inner mental anguish that might have turned suicidal, highlighting the incident when a fellow expatriate accused Ghanem of robbing their country: “He had a run-in with someone at the airport two months ago, who called him a thief,” one family friend said. Another called it a turning point for Ghanem: “Earlier it was all red carpets, highlights and glamour. It was a U-turn after he got spat on. He withdrew into himself.”

Others found that hard to believe. He remained a regular at the Intercontinental Hotel, the hub for OPEC movers and shakers, holding meetings and registering a company, Petrofin GmbH, on March 7 that was to host a consultancy run by Ghanem and three former OPEC oil ministers, from Nigeria, Iraq and Algeria.

The 1982 murder dressed as suicide of Vatican businessman Roberto Calvi, “God’s banker”, found hanged from a Thames bridge after falling foul of the mafia, has helped sustain scepticism among those wary of ruling out foul play in Ghanem’s death.

“All of us, we keep taking for hours about this. Everybody has his theory,” said one friend who said he first thought of a heart attack but now was not so sure Ghanem had not been killed.

“Nothing has convinced me yet,” he said. “It is a mystery.”

Two men were killed on Sunday and 29 other people were injured after their convoy that was illegally crossing from Egypt into Libya entered a minefield, a medical source said.

Mahmoud Zahran, a Health Ministry official in the northern Egyptian city of Marsa Matrouh, said an Egyptian and a Sudanese man died when their vehicle, which was travelling in a convoy with two others, hit landmines inside Libya.

Health officials and Egypt’s state news agency said all the injured were Egyptians, except for two Sudanese. Reports had earlier said the two dead were both Egyptian.

Egyptians have traditionally sought work in Libya, but the conflict that toppled Muammar Gaddafi last year forced many to leave.

A recovery in Libyan oil output to near pre-war levels is luring many back, however, at a time when Egypt’s economy has been hammered by the uprising that ousted Hosni Mubarak.

Egypt’s state news agency said the injured were brought to a hospital in Salloum, an Egyptian town near the border.

The north coast of Egypt and Libya is littered with landmines laid during World War Two by Germany and Britain and their respective allies.

Libyan security forces have put an end to a protest that closed off the headquarters of the country’s biggest oil company for two weeks, securing the offices and arresting some demonstrators overnight, officials said on Wednesday.

A spokesman for Benghazi-based Arabian Gulf Oil Company (Agoco) said last week the company had cut output by 30,000 barrels per day due to the protests, in a setback for Libya’s oil industry, which has recovered well since the end of last year’s conflict that ousted Muammar Gaddafi.

However its parent company, the Tripoli-based National Oil Corporation (NOC), denied the cut in production.

Protesters had prevented employees from entering Agoco’s office since April 23, calling for more transparency over how Libya’s new rulers are spending its money and demanding more jobs for young people.

“Forces from the high security committee arrived in the early hours. They are now in control and are checking the building,” Agoco spokesman Abdeljalil Mayuf said.

“Maybe we can start work there again tomorrow.”

Security forces said they arrived at around 3.00 a.m. They took down tents the protesters had set up in front of the main gate.

“We arrested about 30 people. Some of them were sleeping in tents, others were in nearby buildings,” Essam Al-Baggal, a security force commander, said. Another security official said weapons and alcohol had been found in nearby buildings.

Other protesters who were not present in front of the office during the night said they had still to decide what to do next, as they said an agreement was in the works.

Meetings have been held between civil society groups and the demonstrators but these failed to end the protests.

Agoco had threatened to cut production if no solution was found by May 3, and went on to reduce output.

Oil accounts for the bulk of Libya’s economy and exports. The North African country is close to returning to pre-war production of 1.6 million bpd, and its recovery contributed to a rise in output by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) in April, despite a drop in Iranian supply.

Agoco, which produced 425,000 bpd of crude oil before the war, acted as the de facto state oil company of the Libyan uprising as international sanctions imposed during the conflict prevented dealings with the NOC.