Radovan Karadzic in the courtroom

Although he has been told in no uncertain terms several times that the Trial Chamber would not allow any further delays in the trial, Radovan Karadzic has asked the court to grant him a two-week recess. In a motion submitted to Judge Kwon's Trial Chamber, Karadzic claims that he would use the time to prepare his own testimony, and the recess should start on 25 February.

The accused argues that "despite best efforts" he has been unable to prepare for his own testimony because of the "pace of the trial" and the time it takes him to prepare the defense witnesses. He claims that the voluminous indictment and over two million pages of evidence disclosed by the prosecution make huge demands on his time. He also needs time to get some rest ahead of his evidence, which will be "the most demanding and most important" part of the trial for him.

The accused also notes that in 16 months of its case, the defense has called 225 witnesses, while the prosecution took 26 months to call 198 witnesses in its case. Furthermore, the prosecution has 15 professionals in the team, rotating in court, and he has had to question each every of the 423 witnesses. Karadzic petitioned the court to allow him to represent himself, and was granted his wish, although the judges immediately warned him he would face constraints because of this decision.

The former Republika Srpska president, who is facing charges of double genocide and other crimes in BH, is using the figures to show that there is "inequality of arms" between the defense and the prosecution. He has neglected to mention that he has been given 330 hours to examine his witnesses in chief, 30 hours more than the prosecution had, and that he has used almost twice as much time for the cross-examination of prosecution witnesses than the prosecution for their examination-in-chief.

Radovan Karadzic's trial continued with the evidence of former Republika Srpska Prime Minister Gojko Klickovic.

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