In a motion to the Trial Chamber, Radovan Karadzic has indicated he would refuse to appear in courtroom on Monday, 26 October, the day his trial is scheduled to start. The unequivocal boycott announcement is contained only in the English translation of the motion; the Serbian original in Cyrillic doesn’t have it. The Tribunal ‘at the moment has no indication that the procedure will not go ahead as scheduled’


Radovan Karadzic notify the Trial Chamber ‘with regret’ that ‘his defense is not ready to proceed to trial’ and that he ‘will not appear before the judges on that date’.

It is interesting to note, however, that only the English translation of the motion contains the phrase ‘will not appear in court’. Those words are absent from the original written by Karadzic in the Serbian language, in Cyrillic. The original merely states, ‘the defense is not ready for my trial that is supposed to begin as scheduled on 26 October’. Karadzic’s motion has been translated into English by his associates. SENSE has learned that the Tribunal’s translation service is currently working on the official translation.

Confirming that the Chamber has received the motion in which Karadzic announced he will not appear in court on Monday, the Tribunal’s spokesperson Nerma Jelacic has said, ‘at the moment there is no indication that the procedure will not go ahead as scheduled’. The judges, Jelacic went on to say, have ‘full control of the court proceedings and the Trial Chambers are the only relevant body that can make a decision about the readiness of the case for trial.’

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