Slip-up by prosecutors delays Karadzic genocide trial

A war crimes hearing in The Hague for former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic has been delayed because of what prosecutors call a clerical error.

Karadzic, accused of masterminding Serb atrocities against Muslims and Croats during Bosnia's 1992-95 war, was expected to enter pleas to a streamlined indictmentontwo genocide charges and nine other counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

However, judges of the United Nations-sponsored International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia did not include the alleged killing of 140 detainees at the Serb-run Susica camp in eastern Bosnia because prosecutors unintentionally failed to provide evidence.

Trial attorney Alan Tieger said Friday that prosecutors "acknowledge and regret" the mistake, but want time to provide the evidence so the killings can be included in the indictment. No new date was set for Karadzic to enter pleas.

Prosecutors filed the new indictment this week, more than six months after Karadzic was arrested on a Belgrade bus disguised as a bearded new-age guru.

The revised indictment covers the same allegations as the existingone but reduces the number of crime scenes from 41 to 27 in an attempt to speed up what is expected to be a long trial.

The first genocide count covers ethnic cleansing campaigns throughout Bosnia, and the second refers only to the July 1995 massacre in Srebrenica, where Serb troops and paramilitaries rounded up and killed about 8,000 Muslim men and boys.

Karadzic's existing indictment has only one genocide charge. He refused to enter pleas to any of the 11 counts when he was first transferred to the United Nations-sponsored court at The Hague, so the court entered not guilty pleas for him.

In an embarrassing blunder, the new indictment does not include the allegations related to the Susica killings. Prosecutors insist that they have evidence but that a "clerical mistake" meant it was not attached to their request to update theindictment.

Karadzic was first indicted in 1995, together with his former military chief, Gen. Ratko Mladic, who remains on the run.