Judges at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague on Thursday denied an appeal by wartime Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic to delay his trial to give him more time to prepare. The trial will now resume on 13 April 2010.

The trial began five months ago but had been adjourned pending the appeal. It is likely to resume in the next few weeks when prosecutors call witnesses.

During his opening statement last month, Karadzic denied involvement in the two worst atrocities of the 1992-95 Bosnian war - the four-year siege of Sarajevo by Serb forces, where 10,000 died, and the killing of more than 7,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys at Srebrenica in 1995.

In all, Karadzic faces 11 charges of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. He denies them all.

The appeals judges said in their ruling that his demand for more time was groundless. Karadzic had boycotted the start of the trial last year, arguing that he needed more time to prepare.

Mindful of the way that the late Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic was able to drag out his war crimes trial at the Hague, the court has appointed London barrister Richard Harvey as Karadzic's legal adviser to step in if he boycotts or obstructs proceedings.

Karadzic stepped down as leader of Bosnia's Serbs in 1996 and went into hiding until he was captured in Belgrade in 2008, bearded and disguised as an alternative healer.