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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Karadzic boycotts tribunal opening

Ex-Bosnian Serb leader accused of war crimes

Women protest outside the Yugoslav War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands, on Monday.  (Associated Press / The Spokesman-Review)
Mike Corder Associated Press

THE HAGUE, Netherlands – His chair was empty; his headphones lay idle on the desk. In Courtroom One at the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal, outraged survivors of Bosnia’s bloody war gasped in disbelief Monday as judges adjourned the opening day of Radovan Karadzic’s trial after just 15 minutes.

The former Bosnian Serb leader boycotted his war crimes trial, claiming he did not have enough time to prepare his defense – even though he was indicted in 1995 and had known he would be tried since being captured in Belgrade over 15 months ago.

The tactic forced a one-day delay in the trial and demonstrated that the former psychiatrist was ready for a tumultuous battle of wills with the U.N. war crimes tribunal. Judges adjourned Monday’s hearing but declared that the trial will begin today “with or without” Karadzic.

Karadzic, 64, is charged with two counts of genocide and nine counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Prosecutors allege he masterminded Serb atrocities throughout Bosnia’s 1992-1995 war, from ethnic cleansing campaigns against Muslims and Croats in 1992 to the 1995 massacre of 8,000 Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica.

“We expected some kind of justice, but there is not any,” said Suada Mugic, a Srebrenica survivor who took a 30-hour bus trip from Bosnia to watch the trial. “This is very hard and upsetting for us. Everything reminds us of 1995. My husband disappeared, my father and some 23 members of my family.”

She was one of dozens of Bosnian survivors who traveled across Europe to squeeze into the courtroom’s small public gallery for the historic trial. The Bosnian war left more than 100,000 people dead, most of them victims of Bosnian Serb attacks.

Karadzic’s whereabouts were unknown for years until his arrest last year, posing as New Age healer Dr. Dragan Dabic, disguised behind thick glasses, a bushy beard and straggly gray hair.

Arrested in July 2008 after 13 years on the run, he has been working with a team of legal advisers for months getting ready for this trial, where he intends to defend himself.

He has repeatedly refused to enter pleas, but insists he is innocent and faces a maximum life sentence if convicted.

More than 200 witnesses are expected to testify in the prosecution’s case, which is scheduled to last 300 hours. Karadzic has been given equal time for his defense.

For its part, the tribunal is anxious to avoid the debacle that ensued when it tried Karadzic’s patron, former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, who dragged his trial out for more than four years by refusing to cooperate with court-appointed lawyers. That trial was finally scrapped without a verdict after Milosevic died in his jail cell of a heart attack in 2006.

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