Radovan Karadzic defiant over boycott at first hearing

Defense wants more time, adviser warns against court-named lawyer

A TV set is seen in a coffee shop in Sarajevo yesterday, during live transmission of the Radovan Karadzic trial in The Hague. Karadzic appeared in the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal’s courtroom for the first time since his trial began last week to argue for more time to prepare his defense.

By Aaron Gray-Block - Reuters

THE HAGUE – Former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic appeared in court yesterday for the first time since his trial for genocide started but said he would take no further part unless he had more time to prepare his defense.

Karadzic, acting as his own attorney, boycotted the start of proceedings last week before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, where he faces 11 war crimes charges, including two of genocide during the 1992-95 Bosnian war.

Karadzic, who has denied all charges, was the leader of the Serb Republic that sought to carve its own state from Bosnia during the breakup of Yugoslavia in Europe’s worst conflict since World War II.

He said he needs 10 more months to prepare, arguing he has been “snowed under” by 1.3 million pages of documents.

“I don’t want to boycott these proceedings but I cannot take part in something that has been bad from the start,” Karadzic said when asked by Presiding Judge O-Gon Kwon if he would continue his boycott.

The three-judge panel adjourned and said it would decide later this week on how to proceed. Planned prosecution witness testimony today was canceled pending the decision.

Prosecutor Hildegard Uertz-Retzlaff said options included appointing a standby counsel who could step in if Karadzic refused to participate, or stripping him of his right to represent himself. Imposing counsel could delay proceedings by a few months but that would be a “reasonable price” to pay to end his obstruction of the trial, the prosecutor added.

“If necessary, force can be used to secure his presence in the courtroom,” Uertz-Retzlaff said.

Karadzic’s legal adviser Marko Sladojevic said prosecutors were being “unreasonable.”

“Give us more time, and we will be ready and we will put up a proper defense which is a condition for a fair trial,” Sladojevic said. “They will probably either impose counsel or a standby counsel, in which case Karadzic will refuse to cooperate with this person and the crisis will be even bigger.”

Prosecutors said in opening statements that Karadzic orchestrated one of “humanity’s darkest chapters” and is responsible for the killings of more than 7,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys in the village of Srebrenica in July 1995.

The charges also relate to the 43-month siege of Sarajevo by Bosnian Serb forces which began in 1992. An estimated 10,000 people were killed in the siege as the former Yugoslavia was torn apart in fighting between Serbs, Croats and Muslims.

Karadzic was the Bosnian Serb supreme commander pursing a campaign of “ethnic cleansing” during the war, prosecutors say.

A psychiatrist before becoming president of the self-proclaimed Republica Srpska, Karadzic stepped down from power in 1996 and went into hiding until he was captured in July 2008, bearded and disguised as an alternative healer in Belgrade.

Appearing in court, Karadzic, 64, was clean-shaven and his shock of tousled white hair looked as it did when he was a familiar face in media across the globe during the war. He spoke in Serbian, with his comments translated by a court interpreter.

“I don’t need a new lawyer. I just need time,” Karadzic said, adding that preparing a “valid” defense would normally take a trial lawyer up to two years.