Balkans

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) – Bosnian Serb war crimes suspect Radovan Karadzic has asked the United Nations tribunal in The Hague to replace the judges who are overseeing the preparatory stage of his trial for charges including genocide.

SARAJEVO (Reuters) – Bosnia’s failure to establish a coherent system of government more than a decade after its ethnic war has had some strange consequences — among them a dire lack of prison space for Sarajevo’s small-time criminals.

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – Serbia said on Friday it would seek an opinion from the International Court of Justice on whether Kosovo’s declaration of independence was legal and that Belgrade would abide by whatever the court said.

MADRID (Reuters) – Prince Kardam of Bulgaria, the eldest son of the former king of Bulgaria, was seriously injured when his car crashed into a tree on a Madrid highway on Friday, a traffic police spokesman said.

SARAJEVO (Reuters) – The narrow tunnel that ran beneath Sarajevo airport was people’s only escape route during the longest siege in modern history, a symbol of a brutal war that split families and pitted neighbors against each other.

SARAJEVO (Reuters) – Former Sarajevo soccer star Predrag Pasic clearly remembers how Radovan Karadzic, who was recently arrested and sent to The Hague on war crimes charges, tried to inspire the team as its Socialist-era psychologist.

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) – Former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic demanded on Wednesday that former U.S. peace mediator Richard Holbrooke and ex-Secretary of State Madeleine Albright appear at the U.N. war crimes tribunal to back his claims of an immunity offer from the United States.

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – A United Nations investigation into the March storming of a courthouse by U.N. and NATO troops in northern Kosovo criticizes the force for rushing in, diplomats briefed on its contents said on Friday.

PODGORICA (Reuters) – Montenegro has charged eight former soldiers over their role in the 1999 killing of 23 ethnic Albanian refugees from Kosovo, a lawyer of the victims’ families said on Friday.

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) – Former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic has said it is unimaginable he could get a fair trial at the U.N. war crimes tribunal because the world’s media have already branded him a war criminal.