Karadzic appears at U.N. court, says fears for life

THE HAGUE (Reuters) - Former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic appeared before a U.N. war crimes judge for the first time on Thursday to answer genocide charges and said he had been kidnapped and feared for his life.

Karadzic, arrested last week after 11 years on the run, wore a dark suit and tie. He appeared gaunt, his shock of hair whiter and shorter than when he was last seen in public out of disguise more than a decade ago.

Sitting in the seat once occupied by former Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic, 63-year-old Karadzic began in composed mood, giving one-word answers and occasionally cracking a joke.

Asked whether his family knew of his whereabouts Karadzic said: "I do not believe there is anyone who doesn't know that I am in detention."

He became animated and defiant during proceedings that lasted just over an hour, forcing Judge Alphons Orie to interrupt him, indicating he may put up a forceful display in his trial.

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

He is also charged with the persecution and deportation of thousands of non-Serbs, in a wave of ethnic cleansing, and setting up camps where, according to the indictment, "detainees subsisted in an atmosphere of constant terror."

Karadzic, who spoke in Serbian, said he would enter a plea after studying the charges and a revised indictment prosecutors are preparing. The case is due to resume on August 29.

The leader of the Bosnian Serbs during the 1992-95 Bosnia war is the most prominent Balkan war crimes suspect arrested since Milosevic, who died in detention in 2006 while on trial.

Like Milosevic, he said he wanted to handle his own defense rather than use a lawyer, a move that could extend the trial.

Chief prosecutor Serge Brammertz pledged on Wednesday the proceedings would be efficient, and Karadzic said that comment worried him. "Speed matters in a showdown between gunslingers but it is out of place in a court," he said.

SHOWMANSHIP

The streets of the Bosnian Serb capital Banja Luka emptied as people watched the trial on television in shops and bars.

"I cannot even look at him," said Naila Sanderovic, visibly shaken while watching Karadzic in Sarajevo, a city shattered by the Bosnian Serb siege during the war.

"He revives all those difficult images," she said, adding that she had lost her father and brother in the war.

In an outburst Karadzic said his arrest was illegal. "In Belgrade I was arrested irregularly, for three days I was kidnapped ... my rights were not told me. I had no right to a telephone call or even an SMS (text message)," he said.

He attacked former U.S. peace mediator Richard Holbrooke, saying: "If Holbrooke still wants my death and regrets there is no death sentence at this court, I want to know if his arm is long enough to reach me here."

Holbrooke, reached by telephone by Reuters in Washington, was asked about Karadzic's comments. He laughed and said the former Bosnian Serb leader appeared to have misremembered a comment he had once made.

"What I said was that I know that the Hague does not have a death penalty, but if anybody deserves the death penalty, it's Radovan Karadzic because he was responsible, directly or indirectly, for 300,000 deaths," Holbrooke told Reuters.

"So if he is still afraid of me while he is in a well-padded cell in the Hague, I guess that's an indirect compliment in a way," added Holbrooke, who was the architect of the deal that ended the Bosnian war.

Karadzic said he would have surrendered to the court a decade ago had he not feared for his life.

He said he had received an offer from Holbrooke on behalf of the United States "according to which I had to withdraw from public life, I had to make certain gestures and in return the United States would fulfill their commitment" to persuade prosecutors to withdraw the indictment against him.

Asked if there was any truth to claims of a deal with Karadzic, Holbrooke said: "Zero."

"This is an old charge that Karadzic started in 1996," he said. "Such a deal would have been immoral and unethical ... It obviously didn't happen."

At the start of the proceedings, Judge Orie noted Karadzic was alone. Smiling, the suspect replied: "I have an invisible adviser but I have decided to represent myself."

Offered a chance to have the indictment read to him, Karadzic, who had just spent his first night in a cell at the U.N. war crimes tribunal detention center, declined.

"I have been in worse places," he told the court.

Since his arrest in Belgrade he has shaved off the flowing beard and long hair that disguised him while he worked as an alternative healer in recent years.

Karadzic's delivery to The Hague was crucial to Serbia securing closer ties with the European Union. His arrest was seen as a pro-Western move by the new government in Belgrade.

(Additional reporting by Daria Sito-Sucic and Olja Stanic; and Arshad Mohammed in Washington; Editing by Eric Walsh)