THE HAGUE – Former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, on trial over 11 counts of war crimes during the 1992-1995 Bosnian war when 100,000 people were killed, said the court lacked the “legal validity and legitimacy” to try him.
Karadzic boycotted the start of his trial last month, forcing the tribunal’s judges to appoint legal counsel against his will and adjourn until March 2010 to give new defence lawyers time to prepare.
“Regardless of what the decision of the trial chamber may be in response to this motion, Dr Radovan Karadzic believes it is his moral duty in the light of history and before the general public to challenge the legal validity and legitimacy of this court,” Karadzic said in the eight-page motion released yesterday, in which he cites Aristotle and argues that the court is merely a prosecution organ of the UN Security Council.
Karadzic faces life in prison on charges of orchestrating crimes against humanity in the Bosnian war during the break-up of the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s.
He has been indicted over episodes including the 43-month siege of the Bosnian capital Sarajevo that began in 1992 and the genocide of some 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys at Srebrenica in 1995. Karadzic denies all the charges and has challenged the court and sought delays to the trial since he was captured 16 months ago after 11 years on the run, arguing he had a secret immunity deal that protected him from prosecution.
Judges at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia denied his claims and went ahead with the trial of their highest-profile suspect.
Last week they denied him permission to appeal against the court’s decision to appoint him legal counsel, saying an appeal would “hinder rather than materially advance the proceedings”.