Former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic appeared for the first time at his trial for genocide in the Bosnian war on Tuesday but said he would take no further part unless he had more time to prepare his defence.

Karadzic, who is acting as his own attorney, refused to attend the opening of the proceedings before the Yugoslavia war crimes tribunal last week.

He has said he needs another 10 months to prepare his defence against 11 war crimes charges, including genocide during the 1992-95 conflict.

"I don't want to boycott these proceedings but I can not take part in something that has been bad from the start," Karadzic said when asked by Presiding Judge O-Gon Kwon if he would continue his boycott.
"The situation is such is that I would really be a criminal if I were to accept these conditions."

Prosecutors have said in opening statements that Karadzic orchestrated one of "humanity's darkest chapters" and is responsible for the mass killings of over 7,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys in the village of Srebrenica in July 1995.

The charges also relate to the 43-month siege of Sarajevo by Bosnian Serb forces which began in 1992. An estimated 10,000 people were killed in the siege as the former Yugoslavia was torn apart in fighting between Serbs, Croats and Muslims, and 2.2 million people were displaced.

Karadzic was the Bosnian Serb supreme commander, single-mindedly pursing a campaign of "ethnic cleansing" during the war, prosecutors say.

A psychiatrist before becoming president of the self-proclaimed Republica Srpska, Karadzic stepped down from power in 1996 and went into hiding until he was captured in July 2008, bearded and disguised as an alternative healer in Belgrade.

Appearing in court, Karadzic, 64, was cleanshaven and his shock of tousled white hair looked as it did when he was a familiar face in media across the globe during the war. He spoke in Serb, with his comments translated by a court interpreter.

Tuesday's hearing was being held to investigate ways to resolve the impasse over his boycott, either by continuing the trial in his absence, assigning counsel, seeking outside advice, or adjourning to allow assigned legal counsel time to prepare.

"They will probably either impose counsel or a standby counsel, in which case Karadzic will refuse to cooperate with this person and the crisis will be even bigger," Marko Sladojevic, one of Karadzic's legal advisers, told Reuters Television before it began.

Tribunal spokeswoman Nerma Jelacic said the judges have repeatedly warned Karadzic he will have to face the consequences if he continues to obstruct the trial. Judges will decide on how to proceed after hearing submissions on Tuesday.

The complicated trial is expected to take years and involve hundreds of witnesses. There are more than one million pages of prosecution documents.

(REUTERS)