War crimes suspect Radovan Karadzic, will appear before the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague for the first time today, the court said, and will be asked to enter a plea to the charges against him.

The former Bosnian Serb leader, who faces charges of genocide for his actions in the 1992-95 Bosnia war, is due in court at 4 p.m. today, before judge Alphons Orie.

Usually the indictment is read at a suspect's initial court appearance, but Mr Karadzic can ask that only the charges, effectively a shorter summary of the indictment, are read, or that the indictment is not read at all.

He will be asked to enter a plea. If he refuses, proceedings will be adjourned and he will have 30 days to consider before he is again asked to enter a plea. If he still refuses, a plea of "not guilty" will be entered for him.

Mr Karadzic was arrested in Serbia last week and was transferred to The Netherlands and placed in the custody of the tribunal yesterday.

Mr Karadzic was taken into custody by the UN war crimes tribunal to face trial at The Hague yesterday. The former Bosnian Serb leader, arrested in Serbia last week, was taken to the Scheveningen detention centre near The Hague shortly after landing at dawn at Rotterdam airport.

"Radovan Karadzic was today transferred into the Tribunal's custody, after having been at large for more than 13 years," the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia said in a statement.

The only higher ranking official to be brought before the tribunal for crimes during the Balkan wars was Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic, who died in 2006 at the detention centre months before a verdict was due at his trial.

His lawyer in Belgrade has said Mr Karadzic believes he will be cleared of genocide and will defend himself.

He faces two charges of genocide for the 43-month siege of Sarajevo and the 1995 massacre of some 8,000 Muslims at Srebrenica, the worst atrocity in Europe since World War II.

He will have received a medical examination and met legal officials at the detention centre - standard practice for new detainees - and been assigned an en suite cell, identical to that occupied by Mr Milosevic. Mr Milosevic spent his last five years at the centre and was found dead in his 15-square-metre cell due to heart failure.

Mr Karadzic, arrested last week after 11 years on the run, was most recently living under an assumed name, had grown a flowing beard and long-hair, and was working as an alternative healer.

Earlier, he was escorted to Belgrade airport by masked officials from the Serbian secret service. Security was also tight at the tribunal's detention facility, with armed guards patrolling the inner walls.

On Tuesday, some 10,000 hardline Serb nationalists, many brought by bus from rural nationalist strongholds, showed their support for Mr Karadzic in downtown Belgrade, chanting his name and holding up giant banners with his picture.

Clashes broke out when several dozen youths linked to hooligan groups threw flares, stones and garbage cans at riot police. Some 45 people, most of them policemen, were wounded.

Mr Karadzic's delivery to The Hague was key to Serbia securing closer ties with the EU and his arrest was seen as a pro-Western signal by the new government sworn in this month.

His arrival at the UN war crimes tribunal is expected by the government to defuse tension and stop further protests, but also to unlock EU trade benefits.

Mr Karadzic's legal team had tried to delay his extradition but acknowledged they could only postpone, not stop, his transfer.

Relatives have said Mr Karadzic is in good spirits and preparing his defence. He has had two suits delivered for his court appearance, one light, one dark.

There are 37 detainees at The Hague indicted for their roles in the wars in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo.

Released inmates say the ethnic rivalries that drove them to fratricide have faded within the prison's walls, and most socialise and cook together, and engage in board games.

Chronology

Chronology of what happened in the 1992-95 Bosnia war in which Mr Karadzic is accused of genocide:

1992:

February 29-March 1 - Bosnia's Muslims and Croats vote for independence in referendum boycotted by Serbs.

April 6 - EU recognises Bosnia's independence. War breaks out and Serbs, under the leadership of Karadzic, lay siege to capital Sarajevo. They occupy 70 per cent of the country, killing and persecuting Muslims and Croats to carve out a Serb Republic.

May - UN sanctions imposed on Serbia for backing rebel Serbs in Croatia and Bosnia.

1993:

January - Bosnia peace efforts fail, war breaks out between Muslims and Croats, previously allied against Serbs.

April - Srebrenica, Zepa and Gorazde in eastern Bosnia are declared three of six UN "safe areas". The UN Protection Force UNPROFOR deploys troops and Bosnian Serb Army (VRS) attacks stop. But the town remains isolated and only a few humanitarian convoys reach it in the following two years.

1994:

March - US-brokered agreement ends Muslim-Croat war and creates a Muslim-Croat federation.

1995:

March - Bosnian Serb President Radovan Karadzic orders that Srebrenica and Zepa be entirely cut off and aid convoys be stopped from reaching the towns.

July 9 - Karadzic issues a new order to conquer Srebrenica.

July 11 - Bosnian Serbs troops, under the command of General Ratko Mladic, capture the eastern enclave and UN "safe area" of Srebrenica, killing about 8,000 Muslim males in the following week. The UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague indicts Mr Karadzic and Mr Mladic for genocide for the siege of Sarajevo.

August - Nato starts air strikes against Bosnian Serb troops.

November 21 - Following Nato air strikes against Bosnian Serbs, Bosnian Muslim President Alija Izetbegovic, Croatian President Franjo Tudjman and Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic agree to a US-brokered peace deal in Dayton, Ohio.

December 14 - The three leaders sign the Dayton peace accords in Paris, paving the way for the arrival of a 66,000-strong Nato peacekeeping Implementation Force (IFOR) in Bosnia. The international community establishes a permanent presence in the country through the office of an international peace overseer.

1996:

July - West forces Karadzic to quit as Bosnian Serb president.

September - Nationalist parties win first post-war election, confirming Bosnia's ethnic division.

1997:

Having lost power, Mr Karadzic goes underground.

2002:

February 12 - Former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic goes on trial charged with 66 counts of genocide and war crimes in Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo.

2003:

December - Ex-Nato commander tells the court Mr Milosevic knew Bosnian Serbs planned to massacre Muslims in Bosnia in 1995.

2004:

June 11 - In a belated abandonment of its endless denials and under strong international pressure, the Bosnian Serb government make a landmark admission - that Serbs indeed massacred thousands of Muslims in Srebrenica, on Mr Karadzic's orders.

2006:

March 11 - Mr Milosevic is found dead in his cell in The Hague.

2008:

July 21 - Bosnian Serb wartime president Radovan Karadzic, one of the world's most wanted men for planning and ordering genocide, is arrested.

July 30 - Mr Karadzic arrives in The Netherlands to face trial at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in The Hague.

Factbox: UN court prepares for Radovan Karadzic

Following are some facts about the court and its major cases:

The Court:

• The ICTY was established by the UN Security Council in May 1993.

• Based in The Hague, it was the first international body for the prosecution of war crimes since the Nuremberg and Tokyo trials held in the aftermath of World War II.

• The tribunal has jurisdiction over individuals responsible for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity in the territory of the former Yugoslavia after January 1, 1991.

The Cases:

• The tribunal has indicted 161 people. At present, 37 indicted war criminals are in custody in The Hague.

• There are 27 people currently on trial. Sixteen others are at various stages of proceedings and dozens of others have been passed to courts in Serbia, Bosnia, and Croatia. Two people are at still at-large - Mr Karadzic's military commander Mr Mladic, also charged with the genocide of Bosnian Muslims and Goran Hadzic, a Croatian Serb local official, indicted for planning the murder and deportations of hundreds of non-Serbs in the self-declared Republic of Serbian Krajina in Croatia.

• Former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic died in detention in March 2006, just months before a verdict was due in his four-year war crimes trial on 66 counts of genocide, crimes against humanity or war crimes in indictments covering the conflicts in Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo.

• Radislav Krstic, commander of the Bosnian Serb army's Drina Corps in 1995, was the first person convicted of genocide by the court, in a landmark verdict in August 2001. He was jailed for 46 years, but his sentence was later cut to 35, and the offence to one of aiding and abetting genocide.

• Former Bosnian Serb army commander Vidoje Blagojevic was also found guilty, in 2005, of aiding and abetting genocide, and sentenced to 18 years.

• Milan Babic, ex-leader of the rebel Serbs in Croatia's Krajina region, was jailed for 13 years in 2004 for his role in the ethnic cleansing of almost 80,000 Croats in 1991. He was the first notable indictee to admit his guilt, and agreed to testify against Mr Milosevic. He committed suicide in 2006.

• His fellow Krajina Serb leader, Milan Martic, was jailed for 35 years in 2007 for his role in the same expulsions.

• Momcilo Krajisnik, former head of the Bosnian Serb parliament, was sentenced to 27 years in prison for a campaign of ethnic cleansing against Bosnian Muslims and Croats, but acquitted of genocide.

• Former Bosnian Serb President Biljana Plavsic was convicted in 2003 by the ICTY for her part in the persecution of Bosnian Muslims in the war from 1992 to 1995, and is serving an 11-year sentence.

• Vojislav Seselj, leader of Serbia's ultranationalist Radical Party, is currently on trial for charges including murder, torture and persecution of non-Serbs in a joint criminal enterprise with Milosevic to create a Greater Serbia including large parts of Bosnia and Croatia.

• Ramush Haradinaj, a Kosovo Albanian who served as a regional commander of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) during a 1998-99 war with Serbian forces before becoming Kosovo's prime minister, was tried on charges of responsibility for torture, murder, rape and deportation. He was cleared of all war crimes charges and crimes against humanity last April.