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Defiant Karadzic boycotts genocide trial
2009-10-26
THE HAGUE (AFP) - Radovan Karadzic boycotted the start of his UN genocide trial on Monday, forcing an adjournment for a day as the judge accused the Bosnian Serb wartime leader of obstructing the process. Despite an appeal from presiding judge O-Gon Kwon, his legal adviser said Karadzic, who is conducting his own defence, planned to continue his boycott and would not be present when the trial resumes on Tuesday afternoon. Karadzic, the political leader during Bosnia's 1992-95 war which left at least 100,000 dead and became notorious for the Srebrenica massacre and siege of Sarajevo, insists on more time to prepare his case. Neither Karadzic nor any of his legal advisors were present at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) when Kwon started Monday's hearing which lasted about 15 minutes. Noting the absence, Kwon adjourned the hearing until Tuesday and issued an appeal, to "again encourage Mr Karadzic to attend the proceedings." But he also launched an early warning to Karadzic, who was detained in Belgrade in July 2008 after 13 years on the run, much of it spent disguised and working as an alternative healer. Related article: Karadzic trial is a first for O-Gon Kwon. "There are measures that can be taken should he continue to obstruct the progress of the trial," said the judge, including imposing a defence lawyer on the accused or proceeding in his absence. After meeting Karadzic in his jail cell, his legal adviser Marco Sladojevic said the former leader of the self-proclaimed Bosnian Serb republic would also shun the court on Tuesday. "He says that he will not appear tomorrow," Sladojevic told AFP. "He cannot be there because that would mean he participates in the start of a trial that he's not ready for." Karadzic says he needs more time to study a million pages of prosecution evidence and hundreds of witness statements. Sladojevic also stressed that Karadzic "will never accept any imposed counsel" as demanded by prosecutor Hildegard Uertz-Retzlaff, who argued it was the only way to stop his efforts to "frustrate the proceedings". Survivors of the Bosnian war reacted angrily to Monday's adjournment. "It feels like they are being killed all over again," 62-year-old Munira Subasic, who lost loved ones in the July 1995 massacre of more than 7,000 Muslim men and boys at the UN-protected enclave of Srebrenica, told journalists at the court. In Sarajevo, survivors of the 44-month siege of the capital that ended in November 1995 with some 10,000 people killed, said they hoped the ICTY would jail Karadzic for life. "Karadzic stole the best years of my life. Instead of building my career and having fun with girls, I had to grab the gun. And I am supposed to be a lucky one since I have survived," said Sead Husic, 44. But Bosnian Serbs, who see Karadzic as their "national hero", insisted he was innocent. "For us Serbs, he is a saint," said Miroslav, a 28-year-old unemployed man from Banja Luka. The hearing is set to continue at 14:15 pm (1315 GMT) on Tuesday for co-prosecutor Alan Tieger to make his opening statement. Kwon did not specify whether the session would go ahead in Karadzic's absence. Karadzic, 64, faces 11 charges of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity for his role in the Bosnian war. He denies all charges but risks a life jail sentence. 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," according to the charge sheet. This was allegedly done 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 UN genocide trial in March 2006. Karadzic's former right-hand man, Bosnian Serb general Ratko Mladic, is still on the run.
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