A lawyer for General Ratko Mladic has said it is not certain the former Bosnian Serb military commander will appear in a United Nations courtroom when judges deliver their verdicts in his long-running trial for allegedly masterminding atrocities during Bosnia's 1992-95 war.

Mladic's lawyers have filed a flurry of motions in recent days seeking to have the ailing 75-year-old's health assessed ahead of Wednesday's pronouncement of the judgment in his trial.

Lawyer Dragan Ivetic said on Monday that lawyers are not attempting to stall the case and have been trying for weeks to have Mladic's health assessed.

Mr Ivetic said a doctor has warned that, based on Mladic's health, "any form of stress including a trial proceeding may increase his chance of having a stroke, a heart attack or dying".

Mladic is accused of ordering the killing of 8,000 unarmed Muslim men and boys after the capture of the town of Srebrenica, and raining artillery on civilians during the siege of the Bosnian capital Sarajevo.

The trial has been taking place in the Netherlands, as part of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) set up by the United Nations in 1993. 

Wednesday's verdict will be the ICTY's last one, with the court having obtained 161 indictments and secured 83 convictions.

Mladic has been indicted as a suspected war criminal, but he remains a hero in his hometown. Photo: Reuters