– Defiant –
Karadzic, also a published poet, remained defiant this week telling Balkan media on Wednesday he expected to be “acquitted”, and playing down the killings at Srebrenica as only “several hundred”.
“My expectations are the same (as they always were). I know what I wanted, what I did, even what I dreamed of, and there is no reasonable court that would convict me,” Karadzic told the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network in an interview by email.
If he is found guilty of genocide in the municipalities, it will be a landmark ruling at the ICTY.
Prosecutors say Karadzic “knew or had reason to know” that genocide would be committed as a result of the ethnic cleansing plan, and that he failed to stop it or punish those responsible.
He is further accused, along with his military alter-ego and Bosnian Serb army chief Ratko Mladic, who faces similar charges, of being behind the 44-month siege of Sarajevo in which 10,000 civilians died in a relentless campaign of sniping and shelling.
Once Europe’s most-wanted man, Karadzic was arrested on a Belgrade bus in 2008 after 13 years on the run, sporting a thick grey beard and posing as a natural healer. He was transferred to The Hague shortly afterwards.
His marathon trial opened in 2009 when a not-guilty plea was entered on his behalf because he refused to address the court.
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