THE HAGUE – Former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic said he would appear before the Hague war crimes tribunal today after boycotting his trial since it began last week, but only to argue for more time to prepare.
Mr Karadzic, who denies 11 charges including genocide for the Srebrenica massacre of 8,000 Muslim men and boys during the 1992-95 Bosnian war, has refused to attend so far but said in a letter he would do so today.
“I hope we will be able to find a solution which will lead to not only an expeditious trial, but a fair one,” he said.
Mr Karadzic is representing himself. Earlier, one of his legal advisers, Marko Sladojevic, said his client would need 10 more months to prepare and that he was likely to refuse a court-appointed lawyer to represent him.
Today’s hearing will consider options that include continuing the trial in Mr Karadzic’s absence, assigning legal counsel, seeking outside advice, or adjourning to allow counsel time to prepare.
In Mr Karadzic’s absence prosecutors continued with opening statements and spent the afternoon discussing the Srebrenica genocide, Europe’s worst atrocity since the second World War.
Accusing Mr Karadzic of responsibility for one of “humanity’s dark chapters”, prosecutor Alan Tieger said he had ordered Bosnian Serb forces to capture the Muslim enclave of Srebrenica to crown his efforts to “cleanse” eastern Bosnia of non-Serbs.
In video film shown to the court, Mr Tieger showed a Bosnian Muslim man forced to call out to his teenage son that it was safe to surrender to the Bosnian Serbs. Both father and son were later found dead.
He said the killings demanded a high degree of planning and the list of those who knew about the plans was long. – (Reuters)