NETHERLANDS:THE FORMER Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic has accused the international war crimes tribunal in The Hague of being a "Nato court" bent on killing him.
Appearing on 11 charges of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes, Karadzic challenged the legitimacy of the court, refused to enter any pleas and insisted on defending himself.
His performance indicated that the 63-year-old intends to use the tribunal as a stage on which to present himself as a victim of alleged western treachery.
Karadzic is charged with responsibility for crimes including the Serbian slaughter of almost 8,000 Muslims at Srebrenica in July 1995; the long siege of Sarajevo; and the "ethnic cleansing" of northwest Bosnia in the autumn of 1992, when tens of thousands of non-Serbs were killed and hundreds of thousands driven out.
At Karadzic's second pre-trial hearing yesterday, Judge Iain Bonomy, the Scottish high court judge who presided over the trial of the late Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic, ordered the defendant to stand, hear the charges, and enter a plea.
"I will not plead in line with my standpoint towards this court," Karadzic replied, appearing more confident than when first brought before the tribunal last month.
When the judge ordered a plea of not guilty to be entered, Karadzic interrupted him. "May I hold you to your word?" he asked. "What word?" "That I'm not guilty." "We will see," said the judge.
Karadzic said he would be assembling a team of "associates" to assist him in his defence, a strategy that is certain to create delays. Other prominent Serb defendants used the same tactics.
Since being extradited to The Hague, Karadzic has delivered 10 written submissions complaining about various aspects of the proceedings and claiming that former officials from the Clinton administration want him dead.
"I am deeply convinced this is a Nato court," he told the tribunal yesterday. "This court is representing itself falsely as a court of the international community, whereas it is in fact a court of Nato whose aim is to liquidate me."
Radovan Karadzic was the political leader of the Bosnian Serbs during the 1992-95 Bosnia war. He headed the main Serbian party in Bosnia and was president of the self-proclaimed Serbian republic. He was indicted for genocide and crimes against humanity in 1995.
He retired from politics a year after the war ended and vanished until he was arrested in Belgrade last month. - (Guardian service)