Karadzic counsel appointed, trial resumes in March

By Reed Stevenson

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - Yugoslavia tribunal judges ordered legal counsel for former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic and adjourned his trial until March 2010 to give the new defence lawyers time to prepare.

Karadzic has been acting as his own attorney and has been boycotting the trial which charges him with some of Europe's worst atrocities since World War Two.

Karadzic can continue to represent himself, but will have to work with the appointed lawyer, according to the ruling by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.

If he continues to boycott the trial or "engage in any other conduct that obstructs the proper and expeditious conduct of trial, he will forfeit his right to self-representation" and the appointed lawyer will take over, Presiding Judge O-Gon Kwon said in the court order.

"The Trial Chamber encourages the Accused to discuss his defence and cooperate fully with the appointed counsel, so that he or she can make the most effective use of time available for preparation," the South Korean judge said.

Judges had warned Karadzic, who has denied his 11 war crimes charges from the 1992-95 Bosnian war, that they would take this step if he persisted in refusing to attend the trial, but he had argued for more time.

The charges against Karadzic include the 43-month siege of Sarajevo that began in 1992. An estimated 10,000 people died in the siege as the former Yugoslavia was torn apart in the 1990s by Serbs, Croats and Muslims fighting for land.

In the three days of proceedings thus far, prosecutors have described Karadzic as a supreme commander who led a genocidal campaign to make Bosnian Muslims "disappear from the face of the earth" and pursued a campaign of "ethnic cleansing" during the war.