**Former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic is due to go on trial on 11 charges including genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity.**Mr Karadzic denies the charges, which relate to the Bosnian war of the 1990s.
The 64-year-old was brought to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague last year, after 13 years in hiding.
On Thursday, Mr Karadzic said he would boycott the hearing because he needed more time to prepare his defence.
“The biggest, most complex, important and sensitive case ever before this tribunal is about to begin without proper preparation,” he warned.
“When you speak to a woman who tells you that 21 members of her family have been assassinated, you can easily measure the importance of this trial”
**Serge Brammertz
ICTY Chief Prosecutor **
Karadzic faces his day in court
Secrecy still shrouds Srebrenica
The start date has already been put back twice, and his threat came after a request for a further 10-month delay was rejected.
In July, the court dismissed Mr Karadzic’s appeal that the case be dropped because he said he had been offered immunity from prosecution by former US mediator Richard Holbrooke in 1996 if he agreed to quit public life. Mr Holbrooke denies the claim.
Judges’ options
Judges at The Hague insist the trial will begin as scheduled at 0800 GMT on Monday with the prosecution’s opening statement.
But the BBC’s Geraldine Coughlan at The Hague says it is unclear how they will proceed if Mr Karadzic does not appear in the dock.
Their options include suspending the trial, imposing counsel to represent him, starting without him, or forcing him to attend.
Mr Karadzic, who is defending himself, is not due to give his opening statement until next week. One of his lawyers, Peter Robinson, told Reuters news agency that he would boycott the trial until he was prepared.
The former president of Republika Srpska, head of the Serbian Democratic Party (SDS) and commander of the Bosnian Serb Army has refused to enter pleas, but says he will co-operate with the court to prove his innocence.
He was indicted in 1995 with two counts of genocide and a multitude of other crimes committed against Bosnian Muslim, Bosnian Croat and other non-Serb civilians during the 1992-1995 war, which left more than 100,000 people dead.
The charges relate to several events, including the campaign of shelling and sniper attacks on Sarajevo during the 44-month siege of the city, in which some 12,000 civilians died.
Mr Karadzic is also accused of being behind the massacre of more than 7,000 Bosniak (Bosnian Muslim) men and youths in Srebrenica in July 1995, and of attacks on more than a dozen Bosnian municipalities in the early stages of the war.
“The prosecution alleges that Karadzic committed all of these crimes together with other members of a joint criminal enterprise with the aim to permanently remove Bosnian Muslim and Bosnian Croat inhabitants from the territories claimed to be a part of the so-called Serbian Republic,” the ICTY said in a statement.
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
Mr Karadzic faces a maximum sentence of life in prison if convicted.
Correspondents say the judges want to complete the trial by 2012, conscious that the trial of the former Yugoslav President, Slobodan Milosevic, ended without a verdict after four years when he died in custody.
Prosecutors have abbreviated the scale of their case, which Mr Karadzic says depends on more than a million pages of testimony, and will call fewer witnesses and include alleged crimes in fewer locations.
“This trial is important for the victims who will finally see justice being done,” chief prosecutor Serge Brammertz told AFP news agency.
“When you speak to a woman who tells you that 21 members of her family have been assassinated, and for some of them she even has no idea where the bodies are, you can easily measure the importance of this trial.”
Mr Brammertz said his only regret was that the former Bosnian Serb military leader, Ratko Mladic, would not be in the dock on Monday.
When Mr Karadzic was found living disguised and under a false name in Belgrade in July 2008, some officials claimed that Gen Mladic would be next. But more than a year on, Gen Mladic is still at large.