Karadzic genocide trial starts with battle of wits over boycott

The genocide trial of Radovan Karadzic is set to start today with a battle of wits between the Bosnian Serb leader and the U.N. court over his vow to boycott the hearing.

Facing 11 charges of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity during the 1992-95 Bosnian war in which 100,000 people were killed, Karadzic faces a life jail term if found guilty.

The Bosnian Serb leadership has achieved notoriety in history because of the Srebrenica massacre of 7,000 Muslim men and boys and the siege of Sarajevo in which another 10,000 were killed.

"This trial is important for the victims who will finally see justice being done," ICTY chief prosecutor Serge Brammertz told AFP.

"When you speak to a woman who tells you that 21 members of her family have been assassinated, and for some of them she even has no idea where the bodies are, you can easily measure the importance of this trial."

After Karadzic spent 13 years on the run, for much of the time disguised as an alternative healer, the court verdict is expected to take at least two years. But Karadzic, 64, has already caused one legal storm for the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, or ICTY, by announcing that he will boycott the opening hearings.

Demanding more time:

The trial is due to start with the prosecution's opening statement today and tomorrow, followed by that of Karadzic a week later. But he informed the court last week that he would not be present for the opening, complaining that he needs more time to prepare. Karadzic denies the charges and plans to lead his own defense.

Now the judges have to decide whether to postpone the hearings or go ahead without Karadzic. He stands accused of having "participated in an overarching joint criminal enterprise to permanently remove Bosnian Muslim and Bosnian Croat inhabitants from the territories of Bosnia Hercegovina claimed as Bosnian Serb territory," states the charge sheet.

Key among the charges against Karadzic is the massacre of Muslim men and boys at the U.N.-protected enclave of Srebrenica in July 1995, as well as the 44-month siege of Sarajevo that ended in November 1995. The victims are still being dug out of mass graves in Bosnia.

The indictment also lists the killings of hundreds of civilians on Bosnian roads, in their homes and in detention camps in 19 municipalities like Vlasenica, Kljuc, Prijedor, Sanski Most and Zvornik.

Great powers:

The former president of the self-proclaimed Serb Republic in Bosnia, Republika Srpska, Karadzic is accused of having committed these crimes in his pursuit of a "Greater Serbia" which was to include 60 percent of the territory of Bosnia.

He is alleged to have worked with Yugoslav strongman Slobodan Milosevic, who died midway through his own U.N. genocide trial in March 2006.

Karadzic was arrested in July 2008 in Belgrade, where he had lived for many years as an alternative healer, disguised behind a bushy gray beard.

He has insisted he "never planned, instigated, ordered, committed or otherwise aided and abetted any of the crimes charged."

The "great powers" orchestrated the war in Bosnia, he claimed in a written interview with AFP "to achieve imperial goals."

In his cell in the U.N. detention unit in the Scheveningen suburb of The Hague, Karadzic is hard at work preparing his defense, following the example of Milosevic.

In a bid to avoid the dock, Karadzic has repeatedly claimed that he reached an agreement with U.S. diplomat Richard Holbrooke in 1996 which guaranteed him immunity from prosecution in return for his withdrawal from public life.

The court has repeatedly rejected the claims, saying that even if such a deal existed it could not stop the trial. On the eve of the ICTY's most high-profile trial after that of Milosevic, Brammertz has only one regret: that Karadzic's military right-hand man Ratko Mladic will not be in the dock beside him.

"Karadzic was the political boss, Mladic the military general: they should have appeared together before the judges," he said.