After a six-week delay, the first witness for the prosecution took to the stand on Tuesday in Radovan Karadzic's genocide tribunal in the Hague courtroom.

Radovan Karadzic faces 11 counts of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide charges arising from Bosnia's 1992-95 war in which 100,000 people were killed and 2.2 million left homeless. He denies all the charges.

Amhet Zulic is the first of over 400 witnesses to give evidence before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY).

Zulic told the court about beatings he received while a prisoner in the Manjaca detention camp in northern Bosnia in 1992. He is one of the few survivors from the camp.

"Two men would kick us in one part of the body and another would use a baton to beat you over the head until you became unconscious," Zulic, now 62, said.

He also described atrocities that took place when Serbs took over his village, telling the court he had to watch while his father-in-law was burned alive.

Zulic has given evidence to the ICTY on three previous occasions, including the trial of former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic.

Karadzic's cross-examination

Throughout the prosecution's questioning, the accused, Radovan Karadzic sat making notes. The wartime Bosnian Serb leader is representing himself in the trial and so had the opportunity to cross-examine the witness.

In his cross-examination Karadzic tried to discredit Zulic's impartiality, by firing off a long list of questions relating to Zulic's political allegiance and education.

Zulic looked straight ahead of him for most of his testimony, evading the stare of Karadzic from a few feet away.

At the end of Tuesday's proceedings, a judge warned Karadzic not to comment on his own questioning and to try not to waste the court's time in his cross-examinations.

Karadzic was arrested in 2008 on a bus in Belgrade after years as a fugitive. In a March opening statement, Karadzic called the 1995 massacre of around 8,000 men and boys near the eastern Bosnian town of Srebrenica, which he is charged with authorizing, a "myth." He claims that the war was a "just and holy" one aimed at preventing Bosnian Muslims from establishing an Islamic state.

Karadzic's trial began in March after months of delays caused by his demands for more time to prepare. If convicted of the charges, he could face life in prison.

The trial recommences on Wednesday.

cb/dpa/Reuters
Editor: Chuck Penfold