War crimes suspect Radovan Karadzic has been assigned a defence counsel by the Yugoslavia Tribunal in The Hague.

The former Bosnian-Serb leader is on trial for crimes against humanity committed during the Bosnian war in the 1990s. He wants to conduct his own defence, but the court is concerned this will cause unacceptable delays.

The defence counsel is British lawyer Richard Harvey, whose earlier experience includes the defence of suspects at the Rwanda Tribunal and others at the International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia, including fighters of the Kosovar Liberation Army UÇK.

Mr Karadzic is refusing to accept Mr Harvey and will next week discuss with his advisors how to proceed. The court is eager to resume the trial on 1 March. Mr Karadzic has been accused of genocide after the fall of the Muslim enclave of Srebrenica and of war crimes during the siege of the Bosnian capital Sarajevo between 1992 and 1995.

Radovan Karadzic in court (Wikimedia Commons/ICTY)