Associated Press
THE HAGUE, Netherlands -- Radovan Karadzic's words urging the destruction of Bosnia's non-Serbs rang out in a courtroom Tuesday from speeches and intercepted phone calls as U.N. prosecutors opened their genocide and war crimes case against him.
The former Bosnian Serb leader boycotted his trial for the second day, despite warnings from the war crimes tribunal's presiding judge that he could be stripped of his right to defend himself.
The trial promises to be the judicial climax of the Balkan wars of the early 1990s that left more than 100,000 people dead, most of them victims of Bosnian Serb attacks.
In his opening statement, prosecutor Alan Tieger called Karadzic the "undisputed leader" and "supreme commander" of the Serbs responsible for atrocities throughout Bosnia's brutal four-year war.
"[Karadzic] harnessed the forces of nationalism, hatred and fear to pursue his vision of an ethnically segregated Bosnia," Tieger said.
Prosecutors allege Karadzic was the driving force behind atrocities beginning with the ethnic cleansing of towns and villages to create an ethnically pure Serb state in 1992 and culminating in Europe's worst massacre since World War II, the 1995 slaughter of 8,000 Muslim men and boys at Srebrenica by Bosnian Serb forces.
Judge O-Gon Kwon said he will consider imposing a lawyer to represent Karadzic if he continues to boycott proceedings.
Karadzic faces 11 charges -- two genocide counts and nine other war crimes and crimes against humanity. He has refused to enter any pleas, but insists he is innocent. If convicted, he faces a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.
Karadzic was arrested last year in Belgrade after 13 years on the run.
