Bosnian Serb Leader Karadzic Genocide Trial Set to Start

In July, the court dismissed Karadzic's appeal that the case be dropped because he said he had been offered immunity from prosecution by former US mediator Richard Holbrooke in 1996 if he agreed to quit public life. Photo by telegraph.co.uk

Former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic is due to go on trial Monday on 11 charges including genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Karadzic denies the charges, which relate to the Bosnian war of the 1990s.

The 64-year-old was brought to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague last year, after 13 years in hiding.

On Thursday, Karadzic said he would boycott the hearing because he needed more time to prepare his defence.

"The biggest, most complex, important and sensitive case ever before this tribunal is about to begin without proper preparation," he warned, cited by the BBC.

The start date has already been put back twice, and his threat came after a request for a further 10-month delay was rejected.

In July, the court dismissed Karadzic's appeal that the case be dropped because he said he had been offered immunity from prosecution by former US mediator Richard Holbrooke in 1996 if he agreed to quit public life. Holbrooke denies the claim.

He was indicted in 1995 with two counts of genocide and a multitude of other crimes committed against Bosnian Muslim, Bosnian Croat and other non-Serb civilians during the 1992-1995 war, which left more than 100 000 people dead.

The charges relate to several events, including the campaign of shelling and sniper attacks on Sarajevo during the 44-month siege of the city, in which some 12 000 civilians died.

Karadzic is also accused of being behind the massacre of more than 7 000 Bosniak (Bosnian Muslim) men and youths in Srebrenica in July 1995, and of attacks on more than a dozen Bosnian municipalities in the early stages of the war.