Karadzic trial to resume April 13 as appeal is turned down

Apr 1, 2010, 19:32 GMT

The Hague - Radovan Karadzic's war crimes trial is set to resume after judges at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) turned down his request for more time to defend himself, officials at The Hague said Thursday.

The next hearing has been scheduled for April 13 and will see the start of the presentation of the prosecution's evidence. Hearings are to be held 'three days per week for the remainder of April and until further order,' ICTY officials said.

The former Bosnian Serb leader had filed an appeal shortly after providing his opening statements to the court, on March 1 and 2.

In his appeal, Karadzic had contended that he had not been granted enough time and money to sift the enormous body of evidence - some '400,000 pages of disclosure' - which the prosecution has brought against him. He also accused ICTY judges of abusing their power.

But the ICTY's Appeals Chamber dismissed his appeal 'in its entirety' late Wednesday, noting that Karadzic had not only been ruled 'trial-ready' in September 2009, but that he had since been granted both additional time and financial assistance to prepare his case.

The ICTY ruling came a day after the Serbian parliament passed a landmark resolution condemning the 1995 slaughter by Serbian forces of 8,000 Muslim Bosnians in Srebrenica.

The resolution was set to increase the political isolation of hard-core Serbian nationalists like Karadzic, who told the ICTY last month that the Srebrenica massacre was 'a myth'.

Karadzic denies all 11 charges brought against him by ICTY prosecutors. These include counts of genocide for acts allegedly committed by troops under his command during the 1992-1995 Bosnian War.