The representative for the petitioner, Zoran Zivanovic, told the press that at the last two hearings Markovic spoke about the shortcomings to which the petitioner pointed in the rehabilitation motion.

Zivanovic said Markovic backed his claims with evidence and documents, adding that the court had to hear some audio recordings and a couple of more witnesses if necessary before the final decision was made.

Zivanovic was unable to say if the decision on the petitioner's motion would be adopted at the next or some later hearing.

During today's hearing, dozens of mostly young members of the Women in Black NGO and the New Communist Party of Yugoslavia protested outside the courthouse against Mihailovic's rehabilitation. At one point, they exchanged harsh words with a dozen much older Mihailovic sympathisers but police calmed them down.

Belgrade's media said recently the court would decide on the motion for Mihailovic's rehabilitation today, which the court refuted, saying the panel of judges would hear witnesses and consider evidence submitted in the meantime.

On March 16, a Belgrade court ascertaining Mihailovic's death called on everyone with information about it to report to the court within 30 days.

The High Court cannot decide on the motion for Mihailovic's rehabilitation without proof of death. There is no official information as to when he was executed and where he was buried. It is assumed the authorities at the time did not want his grave to be known.

Dragoljub "Draza" Mihailovic (1893-1946) was a Serbian general who led the Chetniks in WW2. After the war, the Yugoslav authorities sentenced him to death for collaboration with Nazi Germany, treason and war crimes. He was executed in Belgrade in mid-1946.

Court proceedings for his rehabilitation began in September 2010, after his grandson Vojislav Mihailovic filed a motion seeking the quashing of the 1946 military court verdict sentencing him to death by firing squad and the restoration of his civil rights. He was supported by the Serbian Liberal Party, led by academician Kosta Cavoski, international law professor Smilja Avramov, members of the Yugoslav Army in the Fatherland and Communist regime victims' associations.

The Alliance of Antifascists of Serbia and other similar associations have asked that the rehabilitation motion be turned down, saying Mihailovic collaborated with the Nazis and committed many crimes.

The Alliance of Serbian People's Liberation Struggle Fighters 1941-45 has pointed to the negative consequences the rehabilitation could have on neighbouring countries and Yugoslav WW2 Partisans' allies.

Serbia's Helsinki Committee on Human Rights and 12 Serbian NGOs have protested against the "crude manipulation of the public" in the wake of the rehabilitation motion.

The next hearing is expected on May 11.