Karadzic to appear at UN war crimes plea hearing

[July 31, 2008]  THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) -- Radovan Karadzic makes his first public appearance since his arrest, shorn of the bushy beard and long hair that disguised him as he defends himself Thursday in his initial hearing on war crimes charges.

The former Bosnian Serb leader is scheduled to appear before Dutch judge Alphons Orie at the U.N.'s Yugoslav war crimes tribunal, the first step in a legal process that could take several years.

From prison, Karadzic told court officials that he would represent himself at the initial hearing, and declined the offer of a court-appointed attorney.

Karadzic will be asked to enter pleas on 11 charges of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes for allegedly masterminding atrocities throughout Bosnia's 1992-95 war.

Prosecutors say he was responsible for the 1995 Srebrenica massacre of some 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys, a deadly 44-month siege of Sarajevo and establishment of internment camps where non-Serbs were tortured, raped and murdered.

If convicted, the 63-year-old Karadzic faces a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.

It is the first public appearance for Karadzic since his arrest July 21 on a Belgrade bus. At the time, he was virtually unrecognizable, his face hidden behind a heavy white beard.

A photo reportedly taken while he was in custody in Belgrade and published in Serbian newspaper Blic shows him with a shave and haircut. The years since the Bosnian conflict ended has turned his hair from salt and pepper to silvery gray.

At Thursday's hearing in a packed courtroom, Orie is expected to ask Karadzic to confirm his identity and offer to read him his 11-count indictment before asking him if he wishes to enter pleas.

Orie will try to rein in any other statements from Karadzic.

"This is not a trial, this is his initial appearance," court spokeswoman Nerma Jelacic said.

Karadzic's Belgrade-based lawyer has said Karadzic plans to ask for the maximum 30 days before entering a plea to the charges. If he fails to plead within that time, Orie will enter not-guilty pleas on all counts.

Karadzic's arrival in the Netherlands on Wednesday aboard a Serbian government business jet marked the end of a 13-year effort by the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal to get hold of its most wanted war crimes suspect.

For Srebrenica survivors, just seeing Karadzic in court will be painful.

"Every time something happens, old wounds get opened and they are confronted with the things that happened in 1995," said Marco Gerritsen, lawyer for "The Mothers of Srebrenica," survivors of Europe's worst mass murder since World War II.

Convicting him of genocide will be difficult, requiring proof of a deliberate intention to eradicate a specific ethnic group, in whole or in part.

Since the tribunal's inception in 1993, a genocide-related charge has held up through the appeals process only once, when Radislav Krstic was convicted of aiding and abetting genocide.

Judges are unlikely to find a smoking gun, such as written orders for Muslims and Croats to be wiped out, said professor Ton Zwaan of Amsterdam University's Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies.

Speaking to reporters Wednesday, prosecutor Serge Brammertz conceded the case would not be easy, but said his team would draw on evidence already presented in other cases since Karadzic's original 1995 indictment.

They are expected to update the indictment before the trial begins.

"We will ensure that it reflects the current case law, facts already established by the court and evidence collected over the past eight years," he said.

It will take months for both sides to prepare for the trial, Brammertz said.

Ratko Mladic, Karadzic's military chief during the war, is one of only two remaining fugitives indicted by the tribunal. The other is Goran Hadzic, a Croatian Serb leader.

[Associated Press; By MIKE CORDER]

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