Former Bosnian Serb Leader Radovan Karadzic attended his war crimes trial at the UN court in The Hague, Netherlands, for the first time on Tuesday after boycotting the first two sessions. In his first appearance at the trial, Karadzic reiterated his demand for more time to prepare his defense.
"I do not want to boycott these proceedings, but I cannot take part in something that has been bad from the start and where my fundamental rights have been violated," Karadzic told the court on Tuesday.
However, the presiding judge, O-Gon Kwon, ruled that the court had already determined that the defendant had enough time to prepare his defense, signaling that the court is unlikely to grant him any more time. The judge then adjourned the session, saying that would rule later in the week on how the trial would proceed.
"Clearly you disagree with these decisions," Judge Kwon told Karadzic. "However, as I previously stated to you, it is the trial chamber, not an accused person, which determines readiness for trial."
Karadzic is representing himself at the trial with the help of U.S. attorney Peter Robinson. The former Bosnian Serb leader had boycotted the initial hearings of his trial early last week, claiming that he needs more time to prepare his defense as he has to prepare it after studying millions of pages of prosecution documents.
Following Kardizic's boycott of the opening session on his trial on 26th October, Judge O-Gon Kwon warned the next day that Karadzic must "accept the consequences" if he chooses not to exercise his right to be present at the trial. The judge said the court could consider assigning a lawyer for the former Bosnian Serb leader if he continues to boycott proceedings.
In its opening statement made last Tuesday, the prosecution described Karadzic as "supreme commander" of a campaign of ethnic cleansing during the 1992-95 war in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Prosecutor Alain Tieger told the court that Karadzic had "harnessed the forces of nationalism, hatred and fear to implement his vision of an ethnically separated Bosnia."
Karadzic faces 11 counts of war crimes, including genocide, crimes against humanity and severe breaches of the Geneva Conventions during the 1992-95 war in Bosnia-Herzegovina, including the 1995 genocide of some 8,000 Muslim boys and men in the eastern town of Srebrenica.
Karadzic was arrested in July 2008 in Belgrade, ending a 13-year-long run from the law after the International Criminal Court indicted him on war crime charges in 1996. Karadzic, who faces a maximum sentence of life imprisonment if convicted by the UN court, has denied all charges.
Karadzic's trial was originally scheduled to begin on 21st October. But the judges at the ICTY postponed it to 26th October after they upheld Karadzic's request for postponing his trial by a few days to give him more time to prepare his defense.
The judges, however, rejected Karadzic's appeal for dropping the war crime charges against him on grounds that he had reached an immunity deal with former U.S. envoy to the United Nations. The court ruling followed Karadzic's appeal against another ruling made in July that his war crimes trial would continue despite his immunity claims.
Earlier, Karadzic had challenged the jurisdiction of the UN court on the basis of an immunity deal he claims to have reached with Richard Holbrooke, the former US ambassador to the United Nations who negotiated the accord that ended the Bosnian war. Karadzic argued that the deal promised him immunity from prosecution if he withdrew completely from politics.
The court ruled that the deal claimed by Karadzic, if at all it really existed, would not have any legal standing as Holbrooke was not acting with the authority of the UN Security Council at that time. Holbrooke, who is now a U.S. special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, has repeatedly denied the existence of such a deal, describing it as "no more than another lie from the most evil man in Europe."
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