MIKE CORDER THE HAGUE The judge preparing Radovan Karadzic's genocide trial said yesterday that the case was unlikely to start before September, and he was considering dropping some charges to shorten court proceedings that could take years.

MIKE CORDER THE HAGUE

The judge preparing Radovan Karadzic's genocide trial said yesterday that the case was unlikely to start before September, and he was considering dropping some charges to shorten court proceedings that could take years.

At a pre-trial hearing of the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal at The Hague, Scottish judge Iain Bonomy said that the prosecution case alone is likely to take at least a year.

Bonomy indicated prosecutors might have to drop one of two key parts of the 11-count indictment: either the deadly siege of Sarajevo or the July 1995 killing of 8000 Muslims in the UN safe haven of Srebrenica, Europe's worst massacre since the Second World War.

"It may be that we don't have time to do Srebrenica and Sarajevo," Bonomy confirmed, implying prosecutors may have to choose one or the other.

Karadzic, 64, is charged with genocide for his alleged role in masterminding the Srebrenica slayings, and with counts including murder and spreading terror for the campaign of sniping and shelling in Sarajevo.

Karadzic, who is leading his own defence, says he is innocent of all charges. He expressed doubt the trial could start in September.

"I don't know whether you had in mind September this year, because the material I have requires months and months of time just to look through it," he told Bonomy.

In recent months he has bombarded the tribunal with dozens of motions, including requests to summon US diplomats and Sweden's foreign minister, in an effort to have the case dismissed. He has argued that he was promised immunity from war crimes prosecution when he agreed to leave office in 1996.

"This is going to have to be a much more intensive debate probably in September," Bonomy added.

The tribunal is under pressure from the UN Security Council, which pays its multi-million pound budget, to complete its cases and close its doors in the coming years.

The tribunal is haunted by its failure to reach a verdict in the sprawling trial of Karadzic's mentor, former Serb President Slobodan Milosevic, whose trial was aborted after more than four years when he died of a heart attack in his cell in March 2006.

Karadzic was arrested on a Belgrade bus almost a year ago, disguised as a New Age healer, after 13 years as one of the world's most-wanted fugitives, on the run from international justice.

His wartime military chief, General Ratko Mladic, remains on the run.-AP