World Scene

BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA

Karadzic trial to start without him

THE HAGUE | The trial of Radovan Karadzic - one of the most significant war crimes cases to emerge from Europe’s bloodiest conflict since World War II - is to start Monday without the defendant present.

The Bosnian Serb leader’s boycott of the opening is a blow to survivors who hold him responsible for tens of thousands of deaths during the 1992-95 Bosnian war.

The trial of Karadzic’s former political mentor Slobodan Milosevic ended without a verdict after he died in 2006.

Like Milosevic, Karadzic, 64, is charged with genocide - one count for the 1995 murder of 8,000 Muslim men in Srebrenica and a second for the Bosnian Serb campaign of ethnic cleansing against the country’s Muslims and Croats. There are nine other charges including extermination, persecution and taking peacekeepers hostage.

Karadzic faces a maximum life sentence if convicted.

Two suspects are still sought by the court - wartime military chief Gen. Ratko Mladic and a former leader of rebel Serbs in Croatia, Goran Hadzic.

ISRAEL

Palestinians protest at Al-Aqsa mosque

JERUSALEM | Israeli police firing stun grenades faced off Sunday against masked Palestinian protesters hurling stones and plastic chairs outside the Holy Land’s most volatile shrine.

Israeli riot police behind plexiglass shields marched toward young men covering their faces with T-shirts and scarves, sending many running for cover into the Al-Aqsa mosque, a Muslim shrine in the compound known to Jews as the Temple Mount and to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary.

Protesters holed up in the mosque for several hours, dispersing before nightfall. Nine police officers were lightly wounded and 18 protesters were detained, police said.

A visit to the site in 2000 by Ariel Sharon, then an Israeli opposition leader, helped ignite deadly clashes that escalated into the second Palestinian uprising, or intifada.

Sunday’s disturbances were rooted in calls from Muslim leaders to protect the Islamic sites from what they said were Israeli plots to damage them or let Jews pray in the compound. There was no evidence to support either claim. Palestinians are also angry about stalled peace talks and Israeli construction in east Jerusalem and the West Bank.

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