Former Bosnian Serb leader tells war crimes trial 'alleged' siege of city was a myth intended to draw Nato into conflict

This article is more than 10 years old

This article is more than 10 years old

Radovan Karadzic today accused Bosnian Muslim forces of killing their own people in Sarajevo in order to engineer a western intervention against Bosnian Serbs.

The former Bosnian Serb leader made the claim as he defended himself against charges of genocide and other war crimes at the international criminal tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague.

On the second day of his opening statement to the tribunal, Karadzic sought to rewrite the historical record on the 44-month siege of Sarajevo – the longest siege of a capital city in the history of modern warfare.

Bosnian Serb forces encircled the city from 1992 to 1996, shelling it with artillery, mortars and anti-aircraft guns.

It is estimated that almost 10,000 people, including more than 1,500 children, were killed. A further 56,000 were wounded.

One of the 11 indictments against Karadzic is for the siege, which he described as a "myth" aimed at drawing Nato into the conflict on the side of Bosnian Muslims.

In a lengthy, rambling defence – during which he used detailed maps of the city – he claimed Bosnian Muslim forces had turned schools, hospitals and nurseries into military installations during the siege, making them legitimate targets for Serbian forces.

"We were accused of firing indiscriminately at Sarajevo, but the targets were legitimate targets," he told the court.

The 64-year-old accused Bosnian Muslim forces of shelling their own people as part of a "cunning" trick aimed at bringing Nato forces into the conflict against Bosnian Serbs.

"They killed their own people," Karadizic said as he again accused Bosnian Muslims of staging the Markale market massacre, in which 68 civilians were killed and 200 wounded on 5 February 1994.

In 1995 a second massacre, in which 37 people died at the same market, helped bring about international intervention against the Serbs.

The final straw came when Serb forces raided a UN-monitored weapons collection site.

Nato jets attacked Bosnian Serb ammunition depots and other strategic military targets, and fighting on the ground escalated as joint Bosnian and Croatian forces went on the offensive.

The Serbs were slowly driven back in Sarajevo and elsewhere, which eventually allowed the city's heating, electricity and water supplies to be restored.

The tribunal has already convicted two commanders of the Bosnian Serb army for the bombardment of the city. The shelling was captured by TV cameras and the scenes horrified the world.

General Stanislav Galic, who commanded the 18,000-man Romanija Corps that encircled and bombarded Sarajevo, was sentenced to life imprisonment. His successor, General Dragomir Milosevic, was sentenced to 33 years.

Prosecutors say Karadzic orchestrated a campaign to destroy the Muslim and Croat communities in eastern Bosnia in order to create an ethnically pure Serbian state.

The campaign included the siege of Sarajevo and the torture and murder of hundreds of prisoners in detention camps.

That violence culminated in the massacre in the Srebrenica enclave in one week in July 1995 – the worst bloodbath in Europe since the second world war.

Karadzic spent relatively little time on Srebrenica, although he dismissed the massacre as another "myth" designed to engender sympathy for Bosnian Muslims.

He sought to cast doubt on the number of bodies found at Srebrenica, saying it could be no more than 2,000 to 3,000 and adding that questions remained about who had been killed there and how they had died.

"Let's establish once and for all what happened in Srebrenica," Karadzic said. He called for yet another investigation, although the tribunal has found beyond reasonable doubt that Bosnian Serb and other forces killed between 7,000 and 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys between approximately 11 and 19 July 1995.

Survivors of the massacre who came to The Hague voiced their outrage at Karadzic's claims.

"He should be given the Nobel Prize for lying," Sabra Kolenovic, of the Mothers of Srebrenica organisation, told Reuters.

After Karadzic's opening statement today, Judge O-Gon Kwon adjourned the trial pending an appeals ruling on the former Bosnian Serb leader's request for a postponement.

Proceedings had already been adjourned for four months after he boycotted the start of the trial, claiming that he needed more time to prepare and that he had immunity from the court.

In his long-awaited self-portrait, delivered on Monday, Karadzic depicted himself as a misunderstood and much-maligned anti-communist dissident.