Karadzic boycott 'won't stop his war crimes trial'

FORMER Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic boycotted the start of his war crimes trial yesterday, forcing judges to abandon the hearing.

But they warned they would start the case today – with or without him.

Karadzic's decision enraged survivors who had travelled by bus from Bosnia to the Netherlands. A small group briefly refused to leave the courtroom in The Hague after the adjournment, and one woman threatened a hunger strike.

Karadzic, 64, claimed he had stayed away from the hearing because he had not had enough time to prepare. He has been in custody and working on his defence since his arrest on a Belgrade bus in July 2008.

Karadzic, one of the central figures of the Balkan wars triggered by the break-up of Yugoslavia, faces two counts of genocide and nine other charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity. His trial is the most important war crimes case involving the former Yugoslavia since the uncompleted trial of his mentor, Slobodan Milosevic, the former Yugoslav president, who died during his 2006 trial.

Karadzic, who evaded capture for 13 years, has repeatedly refused to enter pleas but insists he is innocent. He faces a maximum life sentence if convicted.

Judge O-Gon Kwon said in the absence of Karadzic, who was defending himself, or any lawyer representing him, he was suspending the case until this afternoon, when the prosecution would begin making its opening statement.

A court spokeswoman said the delay was to give Karadzic time to reconsider his boycott.

She added that judges "have figured out what they are going to do: they are going to start with or without him" .

In a letter dated last Friday and released after the proceedings began yesterday, Karadzic again pleaded for more time.

"I would and never will boycott my trial, but if I am not prepared, that would not be a trial at all," he wrote. "There must be a fair solution."

Prosecutor Hildegard Uertz-Retzlaff urged judges to appoint a defence lawyer to represent Karadzic whether he liked it or not, saying he should not be able to deliberately hold up the trial.

The suspension brought cries of anguish and anger from the small public gallery that was packed with the media and survivors of the war. Admira Fazlic, who was imprisoned in Bosnian Serb-run camps during the conflict, shook her head as she left the courtroom.

"We are shocked," she said. "Radovan Karadzic is making the world and justice ridiculous. He is joking with everybody."

Karadzic's trial is seen as a chance for the tribunal to make amends for Milosevic's ill-fated trial, which dragged on for four years before his fatal heart attack.

Yet Karadzic's boycott and the uncertainty over whether the court should impose a defence lawyer on him has raised the spectre of a repeat of the trial of Milosevic, who had a lawyer appointed for him.

Karadzic's genocide charges stem from the 1995 murder of 8,000 Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica and from the Bosnian Serb campaign of ethnic cleansing against the country's Muslim and Croat populations.

The war left more than 100,000 dead, most of them victims of Bosnian Serb attacks.