Yugoslavia war crimes tribunal judges tried yesterday to wrest back control over the trial of former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, saying the case will start as planned despite Mr Karadzic’s threat to boycott it.

Charged with 11 counts, including genocide, over the 1992-95 Bosnian war, Mr Karadzic on Wednesday filed a submission informing the tribunal in The Hague that he would not appear in court for the scheduled start of his trial next Monday.

“This process is not ready to start, simply because the defence was not granted sufficient time and resources to prepare,” Mr Karadzic said in a letter to the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY).

But the tribunal said the trial – the biggest it has handled since the trial of former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic – would go ahead as planned.

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