Karadzic war trial off to grisly start

THE HAGUE, Netherlands, April 14 (UPI) -- The war crimes trial for a Bosnian Serb leader began in the Dutch city of The Hague with testimony about Muslims digging their own graves before being executed.

Radovan Karadzic, 64, who is representing himself, opened with questions Tuesday to the first of more than 400 witnesses, Bosnian Muslim Ahmet Zulic, the BBC reported.

In written and oral testimony, Zulic testified in June 1992 he witnessed Bosnian Serb forces order some 20 men, his father among them, to dig their own graves before their throats were slit, a correspondent with China's state-run Xinhua news agency reported.

Karadzic, a former psychiatrist, has entered pleas of innocent to 11 charges of genocide, crimes against humanity and the violation of the laws and customs of war for events alleged in Bosnia-Herzegovina from 1992 to 1995.

International observers estimate 100,000 people were killed and 2.2 million left homeless in Bosnia alone as the former Yugoslavia collapsed.

Zulic was scheduled to resume testimony Wednesday. The chief judge of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia instructed Karadzic he would need make his questions to witnesses more concise in the future, the BBC said.