THE HAGUE, Netherlands -- Radovan Karadzic orchestrated the 1995 Srebrenica massacre and his only regret was "that some Muslim men got away," a U.N. prosecutor said Monday as the trial of the former Bosnian Serb leader focussed on Europe's worst atrocity since World War II.
Karadzic again boycotted his own trial at the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal, but pledged in a letter to judges to attend a procedural hearing Tuesday aimed at finding a way of getting the case on track with or without him in the court.
Winding up his opening statement for judges, prosecutor Alan Tieger called the July 1995 slaying in Srebrenica of some 8,000 Muslim men and boys "one of humanity's dark chapters" and laid the blame squarely at Karadzic's feet.
"The murder of these men and the expulsion of the women, children and elderly did not arise from nowhere," Tieger said. "These crimes were the culmination of the accused's determination to cleanse eastern Bosnia to ensure the Serb state he envisioned."
Karadzic is charged with two counts of genocide and nine other crimes against humanity and war crimes linked to atrocities throughout Bosnia's 1992-95 war.
He has refused to enter pleas, but insists he is innocent. If convicted, he faces a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.
Karadzic's boycott last week frustrated dozens of war survivors _ many of them widows from Srebrenica _ who traveled hundreds of miles (kilometers) by bus to see him face justice after 13 years on the run.
The 64-year-old wrote to judges that he would attend Tuesday's hearing, to help find "a solution which will lead to not only an expeditious trial, but a fair one."
He claims not to have had enough time to prepare despite having been indicted first in 1995 and arrested 14 months ago on a Belgrade bus, disguised as a New Age healer. Since then, he has been working on his defense in his cell at the tribunal's detention center. Karadzic insists he needs up to eight more months to be ready for his trial, at which he wants to defend himself.
Judges will on Tuesday consider imposing a defense attorney on Karadzic. That could further delay the trial as a new lawyer would need to familiarize himself with the sprawling case.
Last week, prosecutor Tieger accused Karadzic of being "supreme commander" of a Bosnian Serb ethnic cleansing campaign to eliminate Muslims and Croats from Serb-claimed territory in Bosnia.
Tieger also said Monday that the siege of the capital, Sarajevo, was part of the plan and that Karadzic led it.
"For 44 months, Karadzic directed a campaign of terror against a civilian population who were targeted for living in the capital of a multiethnic country that he sought to ethnically separate," Tieger said.
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