Karadzic to enter his pleas on 11 counts at The Hague

‘Not guilty’ expected from former Bosnian Serb wartime leader

Flowers were laid yesterday at a newly unveiled memorial wall in Sarajevo for the victims of the 1995 bombing by Bosnian Serb forces, just 24 hours before Radovan Karadzic’s second appearance before the War Crimes Tribunal.

By Mike Corder - The Associated Press

THE HAGUE - Since his arrest and extradition last month, Radovan Karadzic has said a lot about an alleged deal he cut with America to avoid standing trial at the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal but virtually nothing about the charges he faces.

Today, in his second appearance before a judge of the UN court, that will change at a hearing in which the former Bosnian Serb leader will have to enter pleas to the 11 counts of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.

If he refuses, the court will file not-guilty pleas.

Karadzic has already made it clear he will plead not guilty by saying he plans to defend himself at trial. If he were to plead guilty, there would be no trial.

The hearing, scheduled to start at 2.15 p.m. (1215 GMT), is a crucial step along the path to Karadzic's trial for allegedly masterminding the worst atrocities perpetrated by Serb forces in the 1992-95 Bosnian war, which claimed the lives of an estimated 100,000 people.

Once Karadzic, 63, has entered pleas, prosecutors and the former leader's legal advisers can begin preparations for trial, which is likely to be months away.

Prosecutors are expected to update the court on moves to amend Karadzic's 11-count indictment.

«That will be interesting because we are hearing that the office of the prosecutor is looking into ways of streamlining the indictment, updating it in accordance with jurisprudence over recent years,» said Geraldine Mattioli, an international justice advocate at Human Rights Watch.

«It will be interesting to hear from the prosecutor when he will be able to have this new indictment,» Mattioli added. «In terms of finding out about the beginning of the trial, that will be vital.»

Karadzic is the accused ringleader of a savage campaign of ethnic cleansing to drive Muslims and Croats out of territory claimed by a breakaway Bosnian Serb ministate.

According to prosecutors, the reign of terror began with the destruction of villages and establishment of brutal internment camps where civilian detainees were tortured, raped and murdered.

It progressed through the horror of the 44-month siege of Sarajevo, during which Serb forces relentlessly shelled the Bosnian capital and sniped at its inhabitants as they sat in trams, stood in bread queues and even as they mourned at funerals.

It reached its murderous climax in the UN-protected Srebrenica enclave where, in July 1995, Serb rebels slaughtered 8,000 Muslim men in Europe's worst massacre since the Holocaust.

After 13 years on the run, Karadzic was finally arrested and extradited to The Hague late last month. When he was detained on a Belgrade bus, his familiar face was hidden behind a bushy beard and flowing white hair and he was working as a new age guru under the assumed name of Dragan Dabic.

Now shorn of the beard and hair that disguised him so effectively, Karadzic looks like an older version of the swaggering Bosnian Serb wartime leader.

At his first appearance before the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia and in two written filings since then, Karadzic has called for the case against him to be dismissed because he claims he cannot get a fair trial. He also says a deal he cut with American envoy Richard Holbrooke guaranteed he would not be prosecuted if he disappeared from the public eye.

Holbrooke has denied making such a deal with Karadzic.

When it begins, Karadzic's trial will be the tribunal's highest profile case since his former mentor Slobodan Milosevic was prosecuted. Milosevic's trial dragged on for more than four years before abruptly ending without a verdict when he died of a heart attack in his cell in March 2006.

Prosecutors hope to avoid such a lengthy trial for Karadzic by trimming down his indictment.

With Karadzic in custody, the UN court has only two fugitives still on the run out of 161 it has indicted for war crimes since its creation 15 years ago. One is Karadzic's military chief, Gen. Ratko Mladic, and the other is Goran Hadzic, a former Croatian Serb leader.