Former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic boycotted the start of his war crimes trial in the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, refusing to appear in court today.
Mr Karadzic, who has denied all 11 war crimes charges arising from the 1992-95 Bosnian war, including genocide, is representing himself and had threatened to boycott the start of the trial, saying he needed more to time to prepare.
Judge O-Gon Kwon said the trial would restart on Tuesday with plans for prosecutors to make opening statements and said that the court would assign a legal team to Mr Karadzic if he once again disrupted proceedings by not appearing.
"There are also circumstances in which a chamber can assign a counsel to an accused if his self representation is obstructing the proceedings of a trial," the judge said.
Judges are eager to get the trial of the tribunal's highest profile defendant under way after his arrest 15 months ago.
The break-up of Yugoslavia in the 1990s saw some of the worst atrocities in Europe since World War Two as Serbs, Croats and Muslims fought for land. More than 100,000 people were killed in warfare and by such policies as "ethnic cleansing".
Mr Karadzic is charged with genocide over the massacre of 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys at Srebrenica in July 1995. He is also charged over the 43-month siege of the Bosnian capital Sarajevo by Serb forces.
He went into hiding from 1996 but was discovered living in Belgrade in July 2008 and extradited to The Hague. His former military commander, General Ratko Mladic, is still a fugitive sought by the war crimes tribunal.
Reuters