The court said Mladic, arrested on Thursday in a Serbian village, had until Monday to appeal against extradition to the international criminal court to be tried over a massacre in Srebrenica and the siege of Sarajevo during Bosnia’s 1992-5 war.

European officials hailed his capture, at a farmhouse belonging to his cousin, as a milestone on Serbia’s path toward the European Union and said they expected his extradition within 10 days.

His son, speaking after what he said was his first meeting with his father in years, said he was too ill.

“We are almost certain he cannot be extradited in such condition,” said Darko Mladic. “He is in very bad shape. His right arm is half paralysed. His right side is partly numb.”

The once burly and aggressive Mladic, 69, moved slowly and with a slight limp when he appeared before an investigative judge at the special war crimes court in Belgrade on Thursday.

Mcclain lawyer later told reporters the court had halted the questioning because his client was “in a serious condition. He is hardly responsive.” An official described him as looking disoriented and tired.

“Dead man arrested,” ran several Serbian newspaper headlines on Friday, with a picture showing a pale and wizened Mladic, the last of the three men accused of instigating ethnic cleansing during the 1992-95 war in Bosnia to be held accountable.

Officials say Mladic has high blood pressure, heart disease and a kidney stone.