Karadzic to enter pleas on war crimes charges

[August 29, 2008]  THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) -- Former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic will either refuse to enter pleas or plead not guilty Friday at the U.N.'s Yugoslav war crimes tribunal to 11 charges including genocide and crimes against humanity, his legal advisers said.

Karadzic wants to wait until prosecutors file a new indictment before entering a plea, lawyer Goran Petronijevic told media in Belgrade.

However, another member of Karadzic's team of legal advisers, Svetozar Vujacic, told Vecernje Novosti, a Serbian daily newspaper, that "there is also a possibility that Karadzic will plead not guilty to all 11 counts, as well as say that he is proud of what he did" during Bosnia's war.

Karadzic, 63, is due in court for his second public appearance since his arrest late last month that ended 13 years on the run.

The hearing is a crucial step toward Karadzic's trial for allegedly masterminding the worst atrocities perpetrated by Serb forces in the 1992-95 Bosnian war, which claimed the lives of an estimated 100,000 people.

"If he refuses to enter a plea again on this occasion ... the judge in this case, Iain Bonomy, would enter a plea of not guilty in his name," tribunal spokeswoman Nerma Jelacic told Associated Press Television News.

Prosecutors are expected to use Friday's hearing to update the judge on their progress in reviewing Karadzic's indictment.

"It's an extensive, complex indictment for many crimes," prosecution spokeswoman Olga Kavran told APTN. "We have not yet had a decision as to whether amendments will be made."

Prosecutors are expected to streamline the indictment to ensure Karadzic gets a quicker trial than his former mentor Slobodan Milosevic, who died of a heart attack in 2006 before a verdict in his genocide trial was reached.

When Karadzic was arrested, his familiar face was hidden behind a bushy beard and flowing white hair, and he was working as a new-age guru by the assumed name of Dragan Dabic.

Prosecutors accuse Karadzic of masterminding a savage campaign of ethnic cleansing to drive Muslims and Croats out of territory claimed by a breakaway Bosnian Serb ministate.

According to his indictment, the reign of terror began with the destruction of villages and establishment of brutal internment camps where civilian detainees were tortured, raped and murdered.

It progressed through the horror of the 44-month siege of Sarajevo, during which Serb forces relentlessly shelled the Bosnian capital and sniped at its inhabitants as they sat in trams, stood in bread lines and even as they mourned at funerals.

It reached its murderous climax in the U.N.-protected Srebrenica enclave where, in July 1995, Serb rebels slaughtered 8,000 Muslim men in Europe's worst massacre since the Holocaust.

At his first appearance before the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia and in two written filings since then, Karadzic called for the case against him to be dismissed because he claims he cannot get a fair trial. He also says a deal he cut with American envoy Richard Holbrooke guaranteed he would not be prosecuted if he disappeared from the public eye.

Holbrooke has denied making a deal with Karadzic.

With Karadzic in custody, the U.N. court has only two fugitives still on the run out of 161 it has indicted for war crimes since its creation 15 years ago. One is Karadzic's military chief Gen. Ratko Mladic and the other is Goran Hadzic, a former Croatian Serb leader.

Serbia's war crimes prosecutor, Vladimir Vukcevic, said Thursday he expects Mladic to be arrested soon.

[Associated Press; By MIKE CORDER]

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