Karadzic genocide trial resumes in his absence

THE HAGUE (AFP) – The genocide trial of Radovan Karadzic went ahead without him Tuesday, with prosecutors branding him "supreme commander" of an ethnic cleansing campaign during the 1992-95 Bosnian war.

"This case is about that supreme commander, a man who harnessed the forces of nationalism, hatred and fear to implement his vision of an ethnically separated Bosnia: Radovan Karadzic," prosecutor Alan Tieger told the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague.

Karadzic, who faces 11 charges of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity, had "ethnically cleansed vast portions of Bosnia and Hercegovina" during the war that claimed some 100,000 lives and forced 2.2 million people to flee their homes, said the prosecutor.

"In the course of conquering the territory that he claimed for the Serbs, his forces killed thousands of Bosnian Muslims and Croats, imprisoned thousands more in squalid and brutal camps and detention facilities, and forced hundreds of thousands away from their homes," said the prosecutor.

Ethnic cleansing, Tieger added, "does not appear to be the consequence of the conflict but rather its goal".

Karadzic, 64, is conducting his own defence. He denies all charges and faces life imprisonment if convicted.

He continued a boycott into the trial's second day, demanding more time to prepare his case.

"The chamber regrets the decision by the accused to absent himself once again from the proceedings," presiding judge O-Gon Kwon said as he ordered the hearing to go ahead.

"He has chosen that course and must therefore accept that consequences will inevitably flow from that choice."

Key among the charges is the massacre of more than 7,000 Muslim men and boys at the UN-protected enclave of Srebrenica in July 1995, as well as the 44-month siege of Sarajevo that ended in November 1995.

"Radovan Karadzic's forces took Srebrenica in their effort to clean out one of the last significant Muslim presences in the east of Bosnia," said Tieger.

"Over the days that followed, thousands of Muslim men and boys were systematically murdered, the women, children and elderly expelled and the Muslims in Srebrenica eliminated.

"The accused was both the architect of the policies underlying these crimes and the leader of the forces that implemented them."

Karadzic is alleged to have worked with Yugoslav strongman Slobodan Milosevic, who died midway through his own UN genocide trial in March 2006, in pursuit of a "Greater Serbia" that was to include 60 percent of the territory of Bosnia.

"For years the supreme commander had directed his forces in a campaign to forcibly carve out a mono-ethnic state from a multi-ethnic country," said Tieger.

Karadzic in his own words had said of Bosnia's Muslims that they "will disappear from the face of the earth," the prosecutor said.

Karadzic's successor Biljana Plavsic, meanwhile, arrived back in Belgrade after the UN war crimes court ordered her early release from prison in Sweden.

Plavsic, 79, was sentenced in February 2003 to 11 years behind bars after she admitted playing a leading role in persecuting Croats and Muslims during the Bosnian war -- the highest ranking former Yugoslav official to accept responsibility for atrocities.

Kwon warned Karadzic that the court may decide to continue the trial in his absence even beyond the opening statements of the prosecution, expected to conclude next week.

The court may also choose to impose a defence lawyer on him.