Former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic appeared before a UN war crimes judge for the first time today to answer genocide charges and said he had been kidnapped and feared for his life.
Mr Karadzic, arrested last week after 11 years on the run, wore a dark suit and tie. He appeared gaunt, his hair whiter and shorter than when he was last seen in public out of disguise more than a decade ago.
Sitting in the seat once occupied by former Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic, 63-year-old Karadzic began in composed mood, giving one-word answers and occasionally cracking a joke.
Asked whether his family knew of his whereabouts Mr Karadzic said: "I do not believe there is anyone who doesn't know that I am in detention."
He became animated and defiant during proceedings that lasted just over an hour, forcing Judge Alphons Orie to interrupt him, indicating he may put up a forceful display in his trial.
Mr Karadzic faces two charges of genocide over the 43-month siege of Sarajevo and the 1995 massacre of 8,000 Muslims at Srebrenica, the worst atrocity in Europe since the second World War.
He is also charged with the persecution and deportation of thousands of non-Serbs, in a wave of ethnic cleansing, and setting up camps where, according to the indictment, "detainees subsisted in an atmosphere of constant terror".
Mr Karadzic, who spoke in Serbian, said he would enter a plea after studying the charges, and a revised indictment prosecutors are preparing. The case is due to resume on August 29th.
The leader of the Bosnian Serbs during the 1992-95 Bosnia war is the most prominent Balkan war crimes suspect arrested since Milosevic, who died in detention in 2006 while on trial.
Like Milosevic, he said he wished to conduct his own defence rather than use a lawyer, a move which could protract the trial.
Chief prosecutor Serge Brammertz pledged on Wednesday the proceedings would be efficient, and Karadzic said that comment worried him. "Speed matters in a showdown between gunslingers but it is out of place in a court," he said.
In an outburst Mr Karadzic said his arrest was illegal. "In Belgrade I was arrested irregularly, for three days I was kidnapped ... my rights were not told me. I had no right to a telephone call or even an SMS," he said.
He attacked former US peace mediator Richard Holbrooke, saying: "If Holbrooke still wants my death and regrets there is no death sentence at this court, I want to know if his arm is long enough to reach me here."
He would have surrendered to the court a decade ago, he said, had he not feared for his life.
He said he had received an offer from Holbrooke on behalf of the United States "according to which I had to withdraw from public life, I had to make certain gestures and in return the United States would fulfil their commitment" to persuade prosecutors to withdraw the indictment against him.
In Washington, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said: "Ambassador Holbrooke has in the past denied such claims."
Mr Holbrooke, architect of the deal which ended the Bosnian war, did not immediately comment.
At the start of the proceedings, Judge Orie noted Mr Karadzic was alone. Smiling, the suspect replied: "I have an invisible adviser but I have decided to represent myself."
Offered a chance to have the indictment read to him, Mr Karadzic, who had just spent his first night in a cell at the UN war crimes tribunal detention centre, declined.
"I have been in worse places," he told the court.
Since his arrest in Belgrade he has shaved off the flowing beard and long hair that disguised him while he worked as an alternative healer in recent years. Mr Karadzic's delivery to The Hague was crucial to Serbia securing closer ties with the European Union. His arrest was seen as a pro-Western signal by the new government in Belgrade.
REUTERS