The trial of Bosnian Serb wartime leader Radovan Karadzic was adjourned on Monday when the accused failed to show up to the court room at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague. Karadzic had announced in a letter on Friday that he would not be attending the trial because he was insufficiently prepared.

Judge O-Gon Kwon had originally acknowledged the absence of Karadzic, and invited the prosecution to make its opening statement. The panel of judges then abruptly adjourned the proceedings 15 minutes after they had begun and said the trial would recommence on Tuesday 2:15 p.m. local time.

Kwon said that if Karadzic, who is representing himself, continued to be absent, judges would consider appointing a lawyer to represent him.

A member of Karadzic's legal team stressed however that his client "will never accept any imposed counsel" as demanded by the prosecution, which has argued it was the only way to stop Karadzic's efforts to "frustrate the proceedings."

Karadzic, 64, faces 11 counts of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity for his role in the 1992-95 Bosnian war that claimed the lives of some 100,000 people and displaced 2.2 million more. He was arrested on a Belgrade bus in July 2008 after being on the run for 13 years.

"Mockery" of justice

Relatives of the victims of the Bosnian war reacted angrily at the news Karadzic's trial had been adjourned.

"It feels like they are being killed all over again," said one woman who lost family in the July 1995 Srebrenica massacre in which more than 8,000 Muslim men and boys were murdered by members of the Bosnian Serb army.

"We don't want Karadzic to control our lives any more," she said outside the Hague court, where more than 100 mothers of victims of Srebrenica protested Monday morning, holding pictures of their dead sons.

"It is a mockery," said Jasna Causevic, of the group Society for Threatened Peoples, about Karadzic's boycott, adding he was trying to control the tribunal.

dfm/mrm/dpa/Reuters/AP
Editor: Nancy Isenson