Bosnian Muslim members of various associations for victims of the war accompanying the break-up of Yugoslavia between 1992 and 1995 protest in front of the U.N. missions headquarters in Sarajevo, on Sept. 16. Protests were organized in reaction to the dec (Elvis Barukcic/AFP/GETTY IMAGES)
Radovan Karadzic, acting as his own lawyer, sent a letter threatening to boycott the first day of his trial before the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.
The trial is set to begin Oct. 26.
Karadzic claims he did not have enough time to prepare, enough funds for assistants, and that documents were translated too late.
Karadzic, who was also the supreme commander of the Bosnian Serb Army, is charged with two counts of genocide and a multitude of other crimes committed during the 1992–1995 war in Bosnia Herzegovina.
After more than 13 years on the run, Karadzic was arrested in July 2008 in Serbia and transferred to the tribunal in The Hague.
He decided to defend himself according to “a belief that the factual situation is so complicated that [it] can only be understood and presented by someone who had actually participated in it from the first day to the last.”
His letter, a copy of which was posted to the Internet, stated that he did not get enough preparation time. “I assure your excellencies once again that no lawyer in this world could prepare defense within this period of time," he wrote. "This trial being the most gigantic should have been given at least the average time for preparation, which is almost two years.”
Karadzic was given 15 months to prepare his case, and an application submitted by him in September to have the trial delayed by 10 months was denied.
He said that with documents translated too late and not enough funds to pay assistants, “I hereby inform you that my defense is not ready for my trial that is supposed to begin as scheduled, on the 26th of October and that therefore I shall not appear before you on that date.”
Biljana Plavsic, the president of the Republic Srpska after Karadzic, will be released on Oct. 27, after serving 11 years. She struck a deal with the tribunal and confessed to being guilty of crimes against humanity for her share in the war. In exchange, other indictments were dropped. She may return to Belgrade.
