Bosnian Serb general Ratko Mladic made a throat-slitting gesture to a woman who lost her son, husband, and brothers in the Srebenica massacre at the start of his trial yesterday for some of the worst atrocities in Europe since the Second World War.

THE recent capture of the Bosnian Serb war leader and general Ratko Mladic and the declaration of his being fit to stand trial for war crimes, most notably Srebrenica in 1995, has brought with it its own irony.