BELGRAD, April 30 (RAPSI) - Lawyers for General Ratko Mladić, former commander of the Bosnian Serb army, charged with war crimes by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), have requested a postponement for three weeks due to the tribunal’s computer network failures, the Beta news agency reports.

Mladić’s attorneys are currently preparing the defense argument which is scheduled to be heard on May 13. However, the defense team claims they do not have enough time due to ICTY computer issues in the conversion from Windows XP to Windows 7. In response, the Prosecutor’s Office requested a court hearing for the petition and warned against suspending the entire trial.

Ratko Mladić has been on trial in the Hague since May 16, 2012. The prosecution presented 164 witnesses to the court and just as many written testimonies. The prosecutors finished their case on February 26, 2014. Mladić’s lawyers plan to present the same number of witnesses as the prosecution.

ICTY has brought charges against Mladić under 11 articles, including persecution of Muslims and Croatians, genocide and crimes against humanity, violations of the laws and rules of war, and taking peacemakers hostage between 1992 and 1995 in Bosnia and Herzegovina. During the Bosnian War, General Mladić was Chief of Staff of the Republika Srpska army. He had escaped international prosecution for 16 years before he was arrested by Serbian officials in 2011.