**Former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic is expected to make his first appearance soon at his trial in The Hague for genocide and war crimes.**He boycotted the start of the trial last week, saying he needed more time to prepare his defence.
But, in a letter to the judge on Monday, he agreed to attend a special procedural hearing.
Presiding Judge O-Gon Kwon will decide how to proceed if Mr Karadzic continues to refuse to attend the hearings.
Mr Karadzic is expected in the courtroom at 1415 local time (1315 GMT).
Balancing interests
Proceedings were adjourned when he failed to appear in court last Monday.
KARADZIC WRITES TO JUDGE
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When Mr Karadzic again failed to appear on Tuesday, the judge said the defendant had chosen not to exercise his right to be present and “must therefore accept the consequences”, announcing that the court would proceed in his absence.
Judge Kwan said the court would consider imposing a lawyer to represent Mr Karadzic if he continued to boycott proceedings.
Mr Karadzic, who protests his innocence, has said he will refuse to accept this.
He argues that he wishes to represent himself during the proceedings but needs more time to prepare his defence, despite being indicted in 1995.
The BBC’s Geraldine Coughlan, in The Hague, says it is now up to judges to decide how to balance the interests of Mr Karadzic against those of the prosecution and the victims.
‘Undisputed leader’
The former president of Republika Srpska, head of the Serbian Democratic Party (SDS) and commander of the Bosnian Serb Army faces two charges of genocide and nine more of war crimes and crimes against humanity during the 1992-1995 war, which left more than 100,000 people dead.
THE CHARGES
- Eleven counts of genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and other atrocities
- Charged over shelling Sarajevo during the city’s siege, in which some 12,000 civilians died
- Allegedly organised the massacre of up to 8,000 Bosniak men and youths in Srebrenica
- Targeted Bosniak and Croat political leaders, intellectuals and professionals
- Unlawfully deported and transferred civilians because of national or religious identity
- Destroyed homes, businesses and sacred sites
Have your say: Trial expectations
Prosecutors have branded him the leader of an ethnic cleansing campaign in the Bosnian War, calling him the “undisputed leader” of Serbs responsible for carrying out atrocities during the conflict.
In his opening statement, prosecutor Alan Tieger dwelt on the Srebrenica massacre, in which up to 8,000 Bosniak men and boys were killed.
“The murder of these men and the expulsion of the women, children and elderly did not arise from nowhere,” he said.
“These crimes were the culmination of the accused’s determination to cleanse eastern Bosnia to ensure the Serb state he envisioned.”
Mr Karadzic was taken to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague last year, after 13 years in hiding.
He faces a maximum sentence of life in prison if convicted.