Ratko Mladic, the Bosnian Serb war crimes suspect and former general, has been moved to the prison hospital in The Hague.
Since he was extradited to the Netherlands on Tuesday, the 69-year-old's health has apparently deteriorated due to long years of neglect, according to lawyer Aleksandar Aleksic.
"Ratko Mladic is in the prison hospital," Mr Aleksic, from Belgrade, told Reuters news agency in The Hague, where Mladic is to go on trial on war crimes charges.
"He has not had proper health care for years and his condition is not good."
Mladic had lost the use of one hand due to a stroke suffered years ago, Mr Aleksic confirmed, but he said that his client was mentally capable and responsive.
Meanwhile another of Mladic's defence team said that he has showed the judge a document which proves that the suspected war criminal has been battling cancer.
According to Milos Saljic, who was speaking to American agency Associated Press, Mladic was treated in a Serbian hospital two years ago.
Mr Saljic said that his client suffered from lymph node cancer and that he underwent surgery and chemotherapy for it in 2009.
The document, which was shown to AP, has blackened out letterhead and signatures to hide the names of the hospital and the doctors who allegedly treated Mladic.
The top of the medical certificate clearly bears Mladic's name, date and place of birth, his father's name and Mladic's rank as a general.
However, Mladic's name does not appear anywhere else on the certificate, which refers only to "the patient", leading some to question the document's authenticity.
