Karadzic on trial

The first witness is set to take the stand Tuesday in the war crimes trial of former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic.

Karadzic faces 11 counts of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide charges at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in the Hague. He is acting as his own attorney and has pled not guilty.

Prosecutor Alan Tieger accuses Karadzic of being the "supreme commander" of the ethnic cleansing that took place during the Bosnian war, which killed 100,000 people and displaced 2.2 million. Karadzic served as president of a breakaway Serb republic from 1992-1996.

Witness Ahmet Zulic is expected to testify about the assassination of some 20 men made to dig their own graves, and about starvation and beating of prisoners. Zulic was a prisoner in Serb detention camps in northwest Bosnia. The court's judges as well as Karadzic will have the chance to cross-examine him.

Karadzic, 64, 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 more than 8,000 men and boys in 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 would face life in prison.

svs/AFP/apn
Editor: Nancy Isenson