The Hague-based UN court announced that Ratko Mladic defence team's appeal against the first-instance lifetime prison sentence will be presented on March 17 next year, according to the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BIRN).

The prosecution will present the appeal a day later, on March 18.

Attorneys of the wartime Bosnian Serb officer will challenge the first-instance sentence that was rendered by the International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in November 2017, convicting him for genocide and other war crimes in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The appeals will be heard by the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals (IRMCT), which is a legal successor of the ICTY.

A date for the final verdict has not yet been set, but Carmel Agius, president of the Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals, has said it will be delivered by the end of 2020.

Apart from the 1995 Srebrenica genocide charges, the ex-general was also found guilty of crimes against humanity committed between 1992 and 1995, including the 4-year siege of Sarajevo and taking UN forces members hostage.