Απών από το εδώλιο ο Κάρατζιτς, όπως είχε απειλήσει

Την απόφασή του να μποϊκοτάρει τη δίκη του ενώπιον του Διεθνούς Ποινικού Δικαστηρίου έκανε χθες πράξη ο ηγέτης των Σέρβων της Βοσνίας, Ράντοβαν Κάρατζιτς. Ο Κάρατζιτς δεν εμφανίστηκε στο δικαστήριο, κάτι για το οποίο είχε ενημερώσει την περασμένη Τετάρτη με επιστολή του στην οποία ισχυριζόταν πως δεν είναι έτοιμος για την υπεράσπισή του. «Διαπιστώνω ότι ο κατηγορούμενος δεν είναι παρών. Παρατηρώ ακόμα ότι, εφόσον επέλεξε να υπερασπιστεί μόνος του τον εαυτό του, δεν είναι παρών κανείς συνήγορος για να τον εκπροσωπήσει», είπε λίγο αφότου ανέβηκε στην έδρα ο Νοτιοκορεάτης δικαστής, Ο-Γκον Κουόν. Το δικαστήριο αμέσως μετά την έναρξη της ακροαματικής διαδικασίας υποχρεώθηκε να διακόψει για σήμερα. Η κίνηση του Κάρατζιτς προκάλεσε την οργή μέρους του ακροατηρίου. Τριάντα μητέρες θυμάτων του πολέμου στη Βοσνία που βρίσκονταν στη δικαστική αίθουσα ξέσπασαν σε διαμαρτυρίες. «Είναι σαν να σκοτώθηκαν για δεύτερη φορά», είπε με αγανάκτηση η 62χρονη Μούνιρα Σούμπασιτς, η οποία έχασε τους δικούς της ανθρώπους στη Σρεμπρένιτσα το 1995. Η Μπακίρα Χάσετσιτς, θύμα βιασμού κατ’ επανάληψη στη διάρκεια του πολέμου, σχολίασε: «Θέλουμε να δικαστεί ο Κάρατζιτς… αλλά δεν θα ξαφνιαστώ αν δεν εμφανιστεί ποτέ στο δικαστήριο». Είχε προηγηθεί διαδήλωση μητέρων θυμάτων της σφαγής της Σρεμπρένιτσα στη Χάγη. Η δίκη αναμένεται να διαρκέσει δύο χρόνια. Ο 64χρονος ηγέτης των Σέρβων της Βοσνίας δηλώνει αθώος για τις κατηγορίες της γενοκτονίας, των εγκλημάτων πολέμου και των εγκλημάτων κατά της ανθρωπότητας που τον βαραίνουν και τον Σεπτέμβριο υποστήριξε πως χρειαζόταν άλλους δέκα μήνες για να προετοιμάσει την υπεράσπισή του. Source: Lawnet.gr

UN-backed court hands down final rulings in Sierra Leone

Former leader of the RUF in Sierra Leone Issa Hassan Sesay (centre)

26 October 2009 – The United Nations-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL) has upheld the convictions and sentences passed on three former rebels in the last judgment by the tribunal to be handed down in the West African nation.The three former leaders of the rebel Revolutionary United Front (RUF) were convicted earlier this year for atrocities committed during Sierra Leone’s decade-long civil war.
The charges include forced marriage as a crime against humanity and attacks against UN peacekeepers – the first time that an international criminal tribunal has entered guilty verdicts for both charges.
The Court – which is based in the capital, Freetown – dismissed all the appeals of the defendants, except one regarding Augustine Gbao for the charge of collective punishment, which has been overturned. He will still have to serve the 25-year sentence originally imposed on him.
The other defendants, Issa Sesay and Morris Kallon, will serve 52 years and 40 years, respectively.
The acting Prosecutor of the Court, Joseph Kamara, welcomed today’s judgment, calling it “a final condemnation of one of the most brutal and notorious rebel groups in modern times.
“This judgment sends a signal that such tactics of warfare will not go unpunished. It may act as a deterrent against those who would use this strategy to further their own aims at the expense of the innocent,” he added in a news release.
With today’s judgment, the Court’s trial proceedings in Sierra Leone now complete. It has now delivered final judgements in all three of its Freetown-based trials, with eight accused persons convicted.
The remaining trial, involving former Liberian president Charles Taylor, is continuing at The Hague, where it was moved for security reasons.
The Special Court is an independent tribunal established jointly by the Sierra Leonean Government and the UN in 2002. It is mandated to try those who bear the greatest responsibility for atrocities committed in Sierra Leone after 30 November 1996.
Source: UN News

Police 'reviewing Lockerbie case'

Megrahi was convicted of the Lockerbie bombing in 2001 Police are pursuing "several potential lines of inquiry" as they review the Lockerbie bombing case, reports say. Detectives in Scotland are working with forensic scientists to try to build a case against those involved in the 1988 atrocity, the Sunday Telegraph says. Prosecutors say Libyan Abdelbasset Ali al-Megrahi - who was convicted in 2001 of the murder of 270 people but freed in August - was not working alone. Relatives of those who died have renewed calls for a public inquiry. The Crown Office in Scotland said there was "no question" of re-opening the case against Megrahi. 'Unfinished business' Some 259 people on board Pan Am Flight 103 from London to New York were killed in the bombing on 21 December 1988, along with 11 people on the ground. Members of UK Families Flight 103 delivered a letter to the UK prime minister asking for a full independent inquiry and to meet him. In it they write: "We have waited patiently for almost 21 years to learn the full truth of what happened.  If [the investigation] is just a dodge to prevent an investigation into why the lives of those killed were not protected... I would be livid  Dr Jim Swire, relative and campaigner "Now we await Prime Minister Gordon Brown's response to our renewed calls for a full inquiry into all the circumstances of the bombing." A spokeswoman said: "Since 1989 senior political figures from successive governments have agreed in principle to an inquiry but have qualified their comments by saying that it could not take place while the criminal investigation was ongoing. "With the abandonment of Mr Megrahi's appeal against his conviction, there has been no resolution to any aspect of responsibility for the bombing." Mr Megrahi, who has terminal prostate cancer, served eight years in prison before he was released on compassionate grounds days after dropping a second appeal against his conviction. The Sunday Telegraph said the latest review of the case was revealed in e-mails from the Crown Office - Scotland's prosecuting authority - to relatives. It said Lindsey Miller, a senior Procurator Fiscal, wrote: "Throughout the investigation we have, at various times, taken stock of the evidence as a whole with a view to identifying further lines of inquiry that can be pursued. Prosecutors have always believed Megrahi did not act alone "Now that the appeal proceedings are at an end a further review of the case is under way and several potential lines of inquiry... are being considered." She added that it "would not be appropriate" to elaborate on those lines. Pamela Dix, whose brother Peter was killed when Pan Am flight 103 exploded over Lockerbie, said the announcement should be interpreted as a "good thing". "Expectations around Megrahi's appeal were really quite high but hopes were profoundly dashed when the appeal was abandoned. The situation is unresolved and it is unfinished business," she said. Dr Jim Swire, who has campaigned for a full inquiry into the bombing since his daughter Flora died in the atrocity, said: "I think that if they are really going to a meaningful investigation then that is all well and good and long overdue. I would be all for it. "But if it is just a dodge to prevent an investigation into why the lives of those killed were not protected then I would be livid." Megrahi 'not alone' UK Families Flight 103 said they were seeking access to previously withheld documents referred to in Megrahi's trial, which suggested they contained "significant information" from a foreign power. They argue that under the European Convention on Human Rights they have the right to an inquiry that confirms to "certain minimum standards where it has occurred at the hands of a state or at the hands of agents of a state". Megrahi, who returned to Libya after the Scottish Government made the decision to release him, has always protested his innocence. A Crown Office spokesman said: "There is no question of re-opening the case against Megrahi. The open case concerns only the involvement of others with Megrahi in the murder of 270 people and the Crown will continue to pursue such lines of inquiry that become available. "The trial court accepted the Crown's position that Mr Megrahi acted in furtherance of the Libyan intelligence services and did not act alone. "The Crown stood ready, willing and able to support his conviction throughout the appeal process which he abandoned." Source: BBC News

KARADZIC TRIAL TO START WITHOUT HIM

Accused vows to boycott trial, claiming he has been denied enough time to prepare.

By Rachel Irwin and Simon Jennings in The Hague

The Hague tribunal has announced it will begin proceedings against Radovan Karadzic on October 26 as scheduled – although the former Serb president has vowed not to attend.

In a letter to the court dated October 21, Karadzic wrote that “we now have the worst scenario possible, which should have been avoided at all costs…the biggest, most complex, important and sensitive case ever before this tribunal is about to begin without proper preparation”.

Karadzic, who is representing himself, previously requested that the start date of his trial be postponed for ten months, claiming that he has not had enough time to prepare his case. Both trial and appeals judges rejected that request.

He wrote this week that “no lawyer in this world could prepare a defence within this period of time” and that he “shall not appear” before the court on the trial’s start date of October 26.

“As soon as I will be prepared, I will be happy to inform the [judges] and the [prosecution] a few weeks in advance,” Karadzic concluded.

While the court has confirmed that the trial will still begin on October 26, it remains to be seen what actions the judges will take if Karadzic does not appear.

Lawyers following the case say that the judges could allow the prosecution to deliver opening statements, even if Karadzic is not there to represent himself.

“The opening statements are not evidence,” said Alex Whiting, a former prosecutor at the Hague tribunal and a law professor at Harvard University. “There is no cross examination required and therefore there would be no prejudice to the defendant.”

The opening statements could be followed by a delay, said Whiting, or the judges could simply decide to move forward without Karadzic.

“The judges might decide that [not appearing in court] is his choice and the trial will proceed without him,” Whiting said. “There is going to be an enormous temptation to proceed that way because the judges are determined to make this trial run on time and efficiently.”

That is especially true after what happened during the trial of former Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic, who died in prison four years into the prosecution’s case. Like Karadzic, he was representing himself against a very long and complicated indictment.

“There were so many attempts in the Milosevic trial for him to be the master of the agenda,” said Stephane Bourgon, a defence lawyer at the tribunal. The judges may be stricter now to avoid losing control of the trial, he said.

If the judges continue without Karadzic, however, they would have to appoint a lawyer to argue his case in court – a scenario which could result in further complications and delays.

“Whoever steps in at this point is going to have a tremendous disadvantage because they don’t know the facts,” explained Michael Karnavas, a defence lawyer at the tribunal.

Karadzic, the president of Bosnia’s Republika Srpska from 1992 to 1996, has insisted on representing himself since his arrest in Belgrade in July 2008, after 13 years on the run.

Prosecutors are seeking to prove that he was the political force behind the massacre of almost 8,000 Bosniak men and boys at Srebrenica in July 1995.

Karadzic is further charged with orchestrating the 44-month campaign of sniping and shelling on the city of Sarajevo, which resulted in nearly 12,000 civilian deaths.

The indictment – which lists 11 counts in total – also alleges that he is responsible for crimes of persecution, extermination, murder and forcible transfer which “contributed to achieving the objective of the permanent removal of Bosnian Muslims and Bosnian Croats from Bosnian Serb-claimed territory”.

Most observers agree that going ahead with the trial without Karadzic could be problematic for such a high-profile and long-awaited case.

“The question is more one of perception and legitimacy of the proceedings, if they choose to go forward without him present,” said Dianne Marie Aman, a law professor and director of the California International Law Center.

Karnavas said that while the judges have to ensure the accused receives a fair trial, they also have to make sure that “justice is seen to be done”.

“On the other hand, if a client refuses to cooperate, what should we do?” he said. “Unlock the cell and say ‘It was great having you here and now you can go home?’”

Reaching a compromise with Karadzic is another option, the lawyers said, and probably the best one.

“I think that they really should negotiate with him, and [set] some kind of a minimum delay that would be acceptable to him, and to the prosecution and to the agenda of the [court],” Bourgon said.

Whiting added that Karadzic’s participation is beneficial to everyone involved.

“It’s in everybody’s interests - the prosecution’s interest, the defence’s interest and the judges’ interest - that Karadzic participates in the trial and that he is represented effectively, whether it is by himself or with counsel, “ said Whiting. “If that can be accomplished, that’s what everybody will want.”

At this point, however, a significant delay in the proceedings is inevitable, said Kevin Jon Heller, one of Karadzic’s legal advisors and a senior lecturer at Melbourne Law School.

Since Karadzic originally insisted on a ten month delay, any negotiated postponement is likely to be the order of at least several months, he said. Furthermore, if the court decides to appoint a lawyer to the case, he or she would need some time to prepare.

“I see no scenario under which this trial will start before 2010,” Heller said.

Source: Institute for War & Peace Reporting International Justice Project
Rachel Irwin and Simon Jennings are IWPR reporters in The Hague.

Large group of lawyers help Karadzic with his defense

 Former Bosnian Serb leader gets advice ahead of defending himself at ICTY

AFPFormer Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic (right) is seen entering the ICTY courtroom at the start of his initial appearance on July 31, 2008, in this file photo.

THE HAGUE (AFP) - Wartime Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, who will boycott his long-awaited trial in a UN court next Monday, has a small army of mostly volunteer backroom lawyers advising him on his self-run defense.
Karadzic has put himself in charge of arguing, objecting and questioning witnesses in the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague, which has charged him with genocide and war crimes.
But Karadzic announced on Thursday that he would not be present for the scheduled opening of the trial as he needed more time to prepare.
In a written interview with AFP, he said he wants «to force the witnesses to present a true picture of what happened in Bosnia and who is responsible for it.» But he is not entirely alone: Karadzic enjoys the backing of eight defense team members paid by the ICTY, as well as another 20-odd attorneys, trainee advocates, and international law experts from all over the world assisting him free of charge.
«It is very unusual» to have such a big team on a case, his chief legal adviser Peter Robinson told AFP ahead of the trial - the most prominent before the ICTY since that of Yugoslav ex-President Slobodan Milosevic which ended without a verdict with his death in 2006.
Milosevic had also handled his own defense, a fact that many experts have partly blamed for the long-drawn out nature of his trial, which started in 2002.
The court ruled this month that two defense lawyers will be allowed to sit in on the proceedings. Robinson will be allowed to speak only at Karadzic's explicit request and only on legal issues.
Karadzic, 64, meets members of his team of legal advisers daily at the UN detention center in The Hague's seaside suburb of Scheveningen.
«Normally I go to the prison in the morning and I meet with him for about three hours from 10 to 1,» said Robinson.
Together they examine all the motions, appeals and requests filed by Karadzic.
«I explain it to him, he looks at it, we discuss it and he signs» before filing them with the registrar.
A former psychiatrist without legal training who refers to himself as «Doctor Karadzic» in his filings, the former strongman has said he works «full time, seven days a week» to study the million pages of evidence filed by the prosecutor.
«I know the facts better than any lawyer,» he told AFP, adding that this way «I can have the floor every day.» «He is really bright and he's very quick, he catches on very quickly,» said Robinson. «The only question is... whether he can question the witnesses well enough to bring up the facts that he wants to bring up. I think he'll do a pretty good job.»
«The quality of international tribunals depends on the quality of the defense,» said Goran Sluiter, international law expert at the University of Amsterdam, explaining his decision to be part of Karadzic's volunteer drafting team. Legal intern Kevin Griffith said Karadzic was «very appreciative of our work.»

Bodies believed to be from Srebrenica exhumed

SARAJEVO (AFP) - Remains believed to belong to at least 19 victims of the 1995 Srebrenica massacre have been exhumed from a mass grave in eastern Bosnia, an official said yesterday.
«So far we have exhumed six complete and 13 incomplete skeletons,» Lejla Cengic of Bosnia's Missing Persons Institute told AFP.
The victims' hands had been tied with wire and two had been blindfolded, she added.
Forensic experts expect to find more bodies in the grave located in a 30-meter (99-foot) deep natural cave in the village of Bisina, near the eastern town of Tuzla.
Bullet casings found on the site indicate that the victims had been executed over the cave, Cengic said.
Bosnian Serbs overran the UN-protected Muslim enclave near the end of Bosnia's 1992-95 war before summarily killing around 8,000 Muslim men and boys within a few days.
The remains of thousands of the massacre victims have been exhumed over the past years from about 70 mass graves around the ill-fated town, with more than 5,600 people identified by DNA analysis.
The Srebrenica massacre is considered the worst atrocity in Europe since World War II. It is the only episode of Bosnia's war that has been ruled as genocide by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the International Court of Justice (ICJ), both based in The Hague.
Source: Kathimerini

Secrecy still shrouds Srebrenica

Former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic has told The Hague he will boycott the start of his trial on Monday. The most serious charge against him is of genocide in the 1995 massacre of 8,000 people at Srebrenica. Olenka Frenkiel considers whether the trial will air the full facts about what happened at Srebrenica, and set the record straight over the alleged complicity of Western governments. Karadzic is boycotting his trial and has said that his defence is 'not ready' "The Karadzic trial may well be the last opportunity to examine the issues of Srebrenica at the top level in a forensic setting. That's why it's a very important trial." Sir Geoffrey Nice was the chief prosecutor in the trial of Slobodan Milosevic at the criminal tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague. That trial ended without conclusion in 2004 when Milosevic died in jail. So although Milosevic was charged with genocide for his role in the Srebrenica massacre, his culpability from his base in Belgrade has never officially been proved. For Sir Geoffrey, four years studying the case raised other unanswered questions. "The role of what's called the West, the degree to which the West was complicit in the takeover of the enclaves - including Srebrenica. There's no suggestion that the West was aware in advance that there was going to be a massacre, but they may have been aware in advance that there was going to be a takeover because the enclaves were no longer capable of being kept. And the very fact of their knowledge in light of what happened may be an embarrassment that leads to a desire not to allow that detail out." The prosecutor in the forthcoming trial will set out to prove Karadzic's responsibility for the massacre of around 8,000 men and boys at Srebrenica on 11 July 1995. But will the trial deliver on its wider mandate - to air all the relevant facts so that the victims and their relatives receive the justice international law promises? Allegations Some 8,000 people were killed at Srebrenica The former Dutch Defence Minister, Joris Voorhoeve, who watched as his troops, Dutch peacekeepers, capitulated to the attacking Serbs would also like answers to questions which have haunted him for 14 years. Why were his calls for airstrikes the night before ignored? And why was there no action taken more than a month previously, when - according to Mr Voorhoeve - the Serbs intentions to attack were known? "I know from intelligence sources that there were already Serb decisions to take the three Eastern enclaves among which was Srebrenica. Those decisions were taken probably in May and June - two months before." Joris Voorhoeve further alleges that the international community knew the attack was coming. "Two security council members had knowledge that the attack was coming. I'm not saying they had knowledge the attack would be followed by mass murder. In any case they did not do anything with this knowledge." Dayton Agreement After Srebrenica fell the second UN designated safe area, Zepa, fell to the Serbs - its Muslim populations killed or forced to leave. The map was re-drawn and when a peace deal was signed at Dayton the Republika Srpska was created. The Bosnian Serbs were allowed to keep the spoils of the Karadzic war. The man who helped negotiate that peace deal was Richard Holbrooke, the then US envoy to Bosnia. On the 10th anniversary of the Srebrenica massacre, in 2005, he told a Bosnian reporter: "Srebrenica is a great tragedy which should not have been permitted to occur. But it did, and I tell you that I was under initial instructions to sacrifice Srebrenica, Gorazde and Zepa, and I felt that was wrong. I look forward to the day when Srebrenica is fully back in the hands of its original inhabitants who are Moslem.' When asked whether it was the town which was to be sacrificed or the population, he replied "both". Mr Holbrooke later said he "mis-spoke" - he had not meant to include Srebrenica or Zepa in what he had said. Newsnight has asked Mr Holbrooke for further clarification, but he has declined. Redacted documents So why did the European Union, Nato and the United Nations do nothing to prevent the worst massacre of civilians since World War II? Two weighty reports, by the Dutch government and the UN, examined the failures at Srebrenica. Both claimed they were hampered by the reluctance of governments to provide key documents citing national security. Dame Pauline Neville-Jones was political director at the Foreign Office at the time: "It's not something one regards as a great triumph for one's own efforts or western diplomacy generally, it's a source of grief. We did not get it right. That's clear. Holbrooke knows that too. Something very, very disastrous went very badly wrong, and there were many contributory factors." Dame Neville-Jones was Britain's lead negotiator at the Dayton accord Dame Neville-Jones says she was unaware of any advance intelligence warning of the attack, and does not believe there was a secret policy to allow the Serbs to re-draw the map sacrificing Srebrenica in order to end the war. "It was certainly not part of any British policy and I'm surprised at the implication it was part of American policy, which I doubt." Sir Geoffrey Nice believes the answers may lie in partly blacked out documents which he saw when prosecuting Slobodan Milosevic, but which the court in The Hague has ruled must remain secret. "All those interested in the topic need access to the best material and that's been denied them by Serbia in its calculated use of the Yugoslavian tribunals procedures to block production of documents, and then to avoid those documents being made available publicly." Without these documents in a separate court - the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the victims of Srebrenica and their relatives have failed to win compensation from the Serbian government for the crime. Secrecy continues to prevent the noblest of the aims of international justice - truth and restitution for the victims. Source: BBC News

Nέα αναβολή της δίκης του επιδιώκει ο Κάρατζιτς, την ώρα που αποφυλακίζεται η Πλάβσιτς

23/10/2009 11:13:26 πμ

Να κερδίσει κι άλλο χρόνο καθυστερώντας την έναρξη της δίκης του ενώπιον του Διεθνούς Ποινικού Δικαστηρίου, επιχειρεί ο πρώην ηγέτης των Σέρβων της Βοσνίας, Ράντοβαν Κάρατζιτς. Ο Κάρατζιτς γνωστοποίησε χθες με επιστολή προς τους δικαστές την πρόθεσή του να μην παρουσιαστεί ενώπιόν τους την προσεχή Δευτέρα, με το επιχείρημα ότι δεν είναι έτοιμη η υπεράσπισή του. Πριν από λίγες ημέρες το δικαστήριο είχε κάνει δεκτό το αίτημά του για αναβολή πέντε ημερών, αλλά τώρα ζητά και πάλι πίστωση χρόνου. Ο Κάρατζιτς έχει αναλάβει αυτοπροσώπως την υπεράσπισή του, όπως είχε κάνει ο Σλόμπονταν Μιλόσεβιτς. Σε διάστημα 15 μηνών έχει καταθέσει περισσότερες από 250 προσφυγές, ζητώντας να αναβληθεί η δίκη και να του χορηγηθούν από τη διεθνή κοινότητα απόρρητα έγγραφα. Οι κατηγορίες που αντιμετωπίζει αφορούν σε γενοκτονία, εγκλήματα κατά της ανθρωπότητας και εγκλήματα πολέμου διαπραχθέντα κατά τη διάρκεια του πολέμου στη Βοσνία (1992-1995). Ο ίδιος ισχυρίζεται ότι ποτέ δεν σχεδίασε, παρακίνησε, διέταξε, ενθάρρυνε ή βοήθησε να διαπραχθούν τα εγκλήματα αυτά. Την ώρα που ο 64χρονος Κάρατζιτς προσπαθεί να μποϊκοτάρει την έναρξη της σε βάρος του ακροαματικής διαδικασίας, ανακοινώνεται πως ελεύθερη θα αφεθεί την προσεχή Τρίτη η πρώην πρόεδρος των Σέρβων της Βοσνίας, Μπιλιάνα Πλάβσιτς, η οποία κρατείται στη Σουηδία για εγκλήματα πολέμου. Η Πλάβσιτς καταδικάστηκε το 2003 σε κάθειρξη έντεκα ετών. Σύμφωνα με τη σουηδική νομοθεσία, οι κρατούμενοι που έχουν εκτίσει τα δύο τρίτα της ποινής τους και έχουν επιδείξει καλή συμπεριφορά μπορούν να αφεθούν ελεύθεροι. Αυτό θα γίνει και στην περίπτωσή της. Ανακοίνωση του σουηδικού υπουργείου Δικαιοσύνης σημειώνει ότι «στην απόφασή του της 14ης Σεπτεμβρίου 2009, το Διεθνές Ποινικό Δικαστήριο συμφώνησε στην υπό όρους αποφυλάκιση της Πλάβσιττς, σύμφωνα με τη σουηδική νομοθεσία». Source: Lawnet.gr

Karadzic plans to boycott trial

Karadzic sent the court a letter saying his defence was 'not ready' Former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic has told the court at The Hague he intends to boycott the start of his trial on Monday. Mr Karadzic sent a letter to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), saying his defence was "not ready". He denies 11 charges of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity, dating back to the Bosnian war. Certain charges are related to the 1995 massacre of 8,000 people at Srebrenica. Mr Karadzic, who is defending himself, was arrested in Serbia and brought to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia last year, after more than a decade in hiding. Control of proceedings Mr Karadzic says he has not had enough time to study a million pages of prosecution documents. Although the trial's start date has been put back twice, his attempts to have the start delayed by 10 months have been rejected by the court. "[Mr Karadzic] filed a letter saying that he was not intending to appear on Monday," an ICTY spokeswoman told the BBC. She added that the court controlled the timing of proceedings, and that there currently was no indication the trial's schedule would be changed. "The judges may decide to go ahead without him," said the spokeswoman. The court had previously rejected Mr Karadzic's appeal that the case be dropped on the grounds that he was offered immunity from prosecution by former US mediator Richard Holbrooke in 1996 if he left public life. Mr Holbrooke has repeatedly denied the claim. The judges said even if the offer was made, it would not have legal standing. Source: BBC News