Karadzic pleads for more time at his war crimes trial
Wednesday November 04 2009
FORMER Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic appeared before the international war crimes tribunal for the first time yesterday, but only to repeat that he needed more time to prepare his defence.
Karadzic's trial on genocide charges at the International Criminal Tribunal in The Hague in the Netherlands, regarded as one of the most important in the history of the war crimes tribunal for former Yugoslavia, opened last week but he boycotted the opening sessions.
Yesterday he told the court: "I don't want to boycott these proceedings, but I cannot take part in something that has been bad from the start and where my basic rights have been violated."
Representing himself, he repeated that he had not had sufficient time to read the more than one million pages of evidence and listen to or watch more than 300 hours of audio and video material in order to prepare his defence.
Boycott
The presiding judge, O-Gon Kwon, said he would rule later in the week on how to proceed in the trial before he adjourned the hearing.
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 for today was cancelled 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.
Force
"If necessary, force can be used to secure his presence in the courtroom," Ms Uertz-Retzlaff said. Prosecutors said in opening statements that Karadzic orchestrated one of "humanity's darkest chapters" and is responsible for the killings of more than 8,000 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 Serb, 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" defence would normally take a trial lawyer up to two years.
Ms Uertz-Retzlaff said imposing counsel to represent Karadzic could delay proceedings by a few months but that this would be a "reasonable price" to pay to end his obstruction of the trial. (© Independent News Service, London)
- Vesna Peric Zimonjic in The Hague
Irish Independent
