AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - Former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic said on Thursday he would not appear before the tribunal when his war crimes trial starts on October 26, saying he did not have enough time to prepare.
"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 in The Hague.
"Therefore I shall not appear before you on that date."Karadzic is due to go on trial on Monday charged with 11 counts of war crimes, including genocide over the 1992-95 Bosnian war.
After Karadzic had unsuccessfully tried last week to have the trial delayed for 10 months, his legal adviser Peter Robinson told Reuters he was considering his options.Chief Prosecutor Serge Brammertz said Karadzic -- who has filed almost 270 motions over various issues since his transfer to the tribunal's detention centre -- has had 15 months to prepare and that the defence's rights have been respected.
Karadzic is charged with genocide over the massacre of 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.(Reporting by Harro ten Wolde; Editing by Janet Lawrence)
