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Radovan Karadzic - Source: Reuters -
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Former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic has told judges he
will boycott the start of his trial for war crimes next week,
confronting them with a dilemma on how to proceed.
Charged with 11 counts, including genocide, over the 1992-95
Bosnian war, Karadzic filed a submission informing the court in The
Hague that he would not appear in court for the scheduled start of
his trial next Monday.
"This process is not ready to start, simply because the defence was
not granted sufficient time and resources to prepare," Karadzic
said in a letter to the International Criminal Tribunal for the
Former Yugoslavia (ICTY).
The tribunal said on Thursday the trial - one of the biggest it has
handled - would go ahead as planned, but a leading jurist said it
was likely to delay the case.
"At the moment there is no indication that the procedure will not
go ahead as scheduled. The control of court proceedings is entirely
in the hands of the tribunal's judges," tribunal spokesperson Nerma
Jelacic said in a statement.
Jelacic added that the trial chambers are the only relevant body
that can make a decision about the readiness of the case.
Alexander Knoops, international criminal law professor at Utrecht
University, said there were now several options before the
tribunal, including delaying the case or appointing counsel to
represent Karadzic, allowing for the trial to proceed.
Compromise delay
"But it is not to be excluded that the court - facing this dilemma
- has no other alternative but to seek a compromise ... and maybe
they have to propose a one- or two-month delay," said Knoops, who
also serves as defence counsel at the ICTY.
He said the most likely scenario is that the tribunal suspends the
case before or on Monday and enters into a compromise with
Karadzic, who tried unsuccessfully last week to have the trial
delayed for 10 months.
There are no specific rules in ICTY statutes to deal with such
situations.
In April 2008, Serbian State Security Service chief Jovica
Stanisic refused to attend his trial, citing health concerns, and
the appeals chamber in May of that year adjourned the case for a
minimum of three months.
However, in October this year the tribunal ordered the trial to
proceed in his absence, ruling that the defence counsel had not
shown the accused was too unwell to attend the hearings.
Chief Prosecutor Serge Brammertz said on Tuesday that Karadzic, who
has filed almost 270 motions over various issues since his transfer
to the tribunal's detention centre, had had 15 months to prepare
and his rights had been respected.
"It will be up to the judges to decide what to do, but as indicated
earlier the prosecution is ready to proceed with the trial and it
will take place. If it is not on Monday it will be at a later
date," prosecution spokeswoman Olga Kavran said.
Karadzic is charged with genocide over the massacre of around 8,000
Bosnian Muslim men and boys at Srebrenica in July 1995.
He is also charged over the 43-month siege of the Bosnian
capital Sarajevo by Serb forces.
The break-up of Yugoslavia in the 1990s saw some of the worst
atrocities in Europe since World War Two as Serbs, Croats and
Muslims fought for territory.
More than 100,000 people were killed in warfare and through
policies such as ethnic cleansing.
Karadzic went into hiding from 1996 but was discovered living in
Belgrade in July 2008 and extradited to The Hague. His former
military commander, General Ratko Mladic, is still a fugitive
sought by the war crimes tribunal.
In a separate development, Sweden said on Thursday it would release
former Bosnian Serb president Biljana Plavsic next week, two-thirds
into an 11-year jail term for war crimes.
