Bahrain medics return to court

Bahraini Shiite men chant anti-government slogans in the Shiite town of Sitra on March 18.The case is one of two involving 24 doctors and 23 nurses and paramedicsProsecutors allege the accused refused to help patientsHuman Rights groups have said Bahrain is targeting medical professionals for treating protesters

Abu Dhabi, Uae (CNN) -- More than two dozen medics accused of misdemeanors returned to court in Bahrain on Monday.

The case is one of two involving 24 doctors and 23 nurses and paramedics who are accused of working against the kingdom's government during large protests earlier this year.

Prosecutors allege the accused refused to help patients at Salmaniya Medical Complex, the main hospital in Manama. Charges also include deadly assault, storing and funneling weapons to protesters, and effectively holding people hostage, according to Bahrain's Information Affairs Authority.

Human Rights groups, including Human Rights Watch and Physicians for Human Rights, have said they believe Bahrain is actively targeting medical professionals for treating protesters at Salmaniya, which was taken over by security forces during the protest.

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The court hearing Monday lasted for about 30 minutes. A lawyer for the medics, accused of misdemeanors, told the judge he wanted to hear testimony from witnesses who were supposed to testify against the medics, according to a family member of one of the accused.

The judge said that he would not allow for the witnesses to testify as they testified earlier this month in the other case involving medics accused of more serious crimes.

During that previous court hearing, seven witnesses were called by the defense, according to the state-run Bahrain News Agency. One witnesses claimed that medics gave protesters blood bags to splash on themselves and distributed knives to protesters using an ambulance, BNA said. That court hearing is scheduled to resume June 30 with additional witness testimony.

Monday's court hearing was adjourned until July 6.

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Bahrain to try medics over protests

Bahraini medics were called on to treat dozens of wounded protesters in the wake of anti-government demonstrationsNEW: Detained medics tell relatives of abuse claims, sources sayA judge delays the trial to give defendants more time to consult with their lawyersThe government says the 47 people will be tried for anti-government activitiesBut rights groups allege the medics are being prosecuted for treating protesters

(CNN) -- Medical workers accused of trying to overthrow Bahrain's monarchy, among other charges, will get additional time to consult with attorneys before their trial begins, a military court judge ruled Monday.

The judge postponed the trial of the 47 health workers to June 13. It originally was scheduled to begin Monday.

Many of the medics -- 24 doctors and 23 nurses and paramedics -- worked at Salmaniya Medical Complex, which the government says served as a coordination point for protests against the government where staff neglected their duties.

The justice ministry said the accused are charged with crimes that include incitement to overthrow the regime, deadly assault and refusal to help persons in need.

Activists and human rights groups allege that the medical workers are being prosecuted for treating protesters.

During Monday's session, lawyers for the medics challenged the court's legitimacy and asked that workers accused of misdemeanors be released, according to one person who was in court and an opposition figure who spoke with someone who attended the hearing.

The judge denied both motions, the sources said.

The medics were allowed to visit with relatives for about 10 minutes, the sources said.

Some of them told family members that they had been subjected to physical, psychological and verbal abuse, the sources confirmed.

Bahrain's Information Affairs Authority did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the allegations.

Protests swept the strategically important island kingdom this year as populations across the Arab world rose up against their rulers. The small, predominantly Shiite country, governed by a Sunni royal family, is home to the U.S. Navy's Fifth Fleet.

About 30 people have died during protests, according to figures from the government, opposition figures and human rights groups. Opposition and human rights groups say the government has detained more than 1,000 people.

During the protests, security forces stormed the Salmaniya Medical Complex, the main hospital in the capital Manama, and beat doctors and demonstrators, according to witnesses.

The hospital "was used as a coordination center by protesters and had been overrun by political and sectarian activity, severely interrupting services and endangering lives," said Houda Noono, Bahrain's ambassador to the United States.

"During this period, patients were refused treatment on the basis of their sect or ethnicity, and emergency calls were neglected," she said. "The hospital grounds were barricaded and Salmaniya was very clearly no longer a neutral, medical establishment. As a result, the action to secure the hospital was both unavoidable and necessary."

Human rights groups have accused the government of widespread attacks on doctors and other medical workers.

"We documented a systematic attack on medical staff in Bahrain including the beatings, torture and disappearances of more than 30 physicians," said Richard Sollom, deputy director of Physicians for Human Rights.

"We found doctors were simply providing ethical and life-saving medical care to patients whom Bahraini security forces had shot, detained and tortured," Sollom said.

Physicians for Human Rights, a group that shared the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize for its efforts to ban landmines, says it sent investigators to the Persian Gulf kingdom and interviewed 45 patients, doctors, nurses and witnesses.

The report details attacks on "physicians, medical staff, patients and unarmed civilians with the use of bird shot, physical beatings, rubber bullets, tear gas and unidentified chemical agents," the group said in an April report.

Its report echoes those released earlier by Human Rights Watch and Doctors Without Borders.

Bahraini officials have denied the allegations.

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US medics brave fire to save lives in Afghan war (AP)

FORWARD OPERATING BASE EDINBURGH, Afghanistan – U.S. Army medic Sgt. Jaime Adame hauled open the door and lunged from the helicopter into a cloud of dirt and confusion.

He could hear bursts of incoming fire above the thumping rotor blades. Somewhere in the billowing red smoke that marked the landing zone and the choking dust whipped up by the medevac chopper was a cluster of Marines pinned down by heavy fire, and one of them was bleeding badly.

The problem for Adame was that he did not know where.

Adame had dropped into "hot L-Zs" before but this one was especially thick with commotion. Every second of indecision mattered, so he just ran, knowing any direction was dangerous. Only then did the cloud clear enough to bring into view the blurred outline of several Marines' boots peeking out of the vehicle they were taking cover under.

"The fear I have never lost," said Adame, who's from Los Angeles. "It's absolutely risky ... and it will definitely get a lot more dangerous."

With the spring fighting season under way in Helmand province in Afghanistan's volatile south, the medics, crew chiefs and pilots with the U.S. Army's "Dustoff" medevac unit expect a rising number of casualties. Coalition troops are seeing stepped-up attacks, the use of complex weapons systems like multiple-grenade launchers and the continuing plague of improvised explosive devices on the battlefield.

By the war's blunt calculation, the worsening hostilities on the ground mean more medevac flights to ferry the wounded. For an emboldened insurgency, that equals opportunity. Increasingly they are targeting the medevac choppers as they swoop in for a rescue.

"It is kinda the wild, wild West," said pilot Lt. Terry Hill of Kellyville, Oklahoma, the senior officer at Forward Operating Base Edi. "In the back of your mind as a pilot you know that you will most likely be shot at or hit."

The Black Hawk helicopters Hill and other medevac pilots fly are unarmed, though they are always accompanied by at least one other aircraft that is. The "Dustoff" helicopters are distinguished with the emblem of the Red Cross and under international law are supposed to be off-limits to enemy fire.

Afghanistan's insurgents make no distinction.

On one recent medevac run, as the helicopter navigated a firefight to set down in a small courtyard, a rocket-propelled grenade fired from a compound exploded in the air just behind the helicopter. The pilot quickly aborted the approach. Ground units called in air support, and attack helicopters riddled insurgent positions with heavy caliber machine gun fire.

Within minutes, the medevac chopper made a second attempt at landing to rescue a critically wounded Marine who had sustained a gunshot wound near his spine.

On another mission, insurgents fired several rounds from an assault rifle into the belly of the helicopter and its rotor blades.

"They seem to want us to get killed, which is surprising because we rescue everybody, including them.," said Chief Warrant Officer Michael Otto of Irvine, California.

The medevac doesn't discriminate between the war's wounded. Beyond coalition and Afghan soldiers, helicopters and medics also pick up injured Afghans, especially children. They often act as an ambulance service ferrying ill and injured Afghans from remote villages to coalition medical facilities. Enemy fighters are evacuated from the battlefield and treated as well.

With the sound of explosions shaking the air, Adame raced to find the wounded Marine. His comrades carried him on a stretcher from the dusty chaos to the chopper and Adame and his crew chief swiftly set to work.

Cpl. Andrew Smith was suffering a life-threatening arterial bleed from a shrapnel wound. His boots were sliced from his feet with a seat belt cutter. He was losing blood at an alarming rate. The medics focused only on stabilizing the young corporal; there was no time to think about the danger they had just faced.

"If one of those grenades hit us as we're taking off or coming in to land that's close to 17,000 pounds of steel, and hydraulic fluid, and flammables," Adame said. "Falling out of the sky in one of those things isn't going to be pretty no matter how you look at it."

Smith remarkably survived and is recovering at a military hospital in Maryland.

It's those successes that give the "Dustoff" crews motivation to plunge back onto the battlefield.

"It's all about saving a human life," said Chief Warrant Officer Joe Rogers of Russellville, Kentucky, the pilot of the helicopter that was hit by assault rifle fire. "And it's definitely worth the risk."

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Medics: Mladic can be extradited

NEW: Mladic requests Russian books in his cell -- and strawberriesA medical team that examines Mladic finds no immediate problemsMladic is "a ruin of a man," his attorney saysMladic was wanted on charges of genocide, extermination and murder

Belgrade, Serbia (CNN) -- A medical team in Serbia has determined that war crimes suspect Ratko Mladic is in good enough shape to be extradited to face a war crimes tribunal, a court spokeswoman in Belgrade said Friday.

While Mladic suffers from several chronic conditions, the team said there are no immediate problems barring a move. This comes after five doctors examined Mladic Thursday night, said Mladic's lawyer, Milos Saljic.

"The court decided that conditions for extradition have been met," court spokeswoman Maya Kovacevic said.

The determination was made during a deportation hearing Friday, held to decide whether Mladic will be transferred to the United Nations war crimes tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands.

Mladic refused to make any statement before the court, but Saljic said the Mladic team will appeal. That appeal could come by Monday.

Asked how soon the judge would rule on the appeal, Kovacevic answered, "immediately."

Mladic's son, Darko, said his father has trouble speaking and his right arm is partially paralyzed.

"We saw him for the first time in many years. He's in bad shape," Darko Mladic said to reporters in front of the courthouse. "His health is very deteriorated."

He said the family is asking the court to send Mladic to a hospital for treatment and analysis and wants Russian doctors to examine him. His father is not guilty of the grave charges against him, insisted Darko Mladic.

But Bruno Vekaric, the deputy prosecutor of Serbia's Special Court for War Crimes, dismissed the family's account of Mladic's health as a defense ploy.

"He's like a young man," Vekaric said. "He's not so ill or in a bad situation."

Mladic's right arm seemed to be bothering him, but he was fine Friday, Vekaric said.

Mladic refused to read the indictment against him, telling the judge, "I don't want to read the papers of the tribunal," according to Vekaric.

An angry Mladic accused Vekaric of being a CIA agent but apologized Friday, the deputy prosecutor said. He asked Vekaric for a few books by Russian authors Leo Tolstoy and Nikolai Gogol. He also made one other request, one that the prosecutor found odd coming from the man once known as the "Butcher of Bosnia."

"He asked for strawberries," Vekaric said, laughing.

Mladic is in a jail near Belgrade facing charges that he presided over Europe's worst massacre since World War II. He was arrested Thursday after more than 15 years in hiding.

Mladic was the highest-ranking fugitive to remain at large after the conflicts that accompanied the breakup of Yugoslavia in the 1990s.

Saljic described Mladic as a "ruin of a man" who has suffered two heart attacks and three strokes since 1996.

Serbian President Boris Tadic said Serbian authorities are still investigating who aided Mladic during his decade and a half on the run, but he called allegations that the country's military sheltered him "rubbish."

"At the end of the day, he was protected by a very small group of people from his family," Tadic said. He acknowledged that Mladic may have been aided by military officers early on, "but at the end of that process, I don't believe that."

The former Yugoslav army officer was the commanding general of Bosnian Serb forces during the 1992-95 war that followed Bosnia-Herzegovina's secession from Yugoslavia.

The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia has charged him with leading a genocidal campaign against Bosnia's Muslim and Croat populations, including "direct involvement" in the 1995 killings of nearly 8,000 men and boys in the Muslim enclave of Srebrenica -- the worst European massacre since the Holocaust.

However, Mladic remains a hero to some Serbs, and small outbursts of anger in reaction to his arrest were seen in Belgrade late Thursday.

CNN's Ivan Watson, Richard Allen Greene, Joe Sterling, Moni Basu and Lateef Mungin, and journalist Branko Cecen contributed to this report.

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