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Karadzic told a hearing on Wednesday that he was a writer as well as a medical doctor, so he needed the internet and an audio recording device in the Hague detention centre because he wanted to work on the correct pronunciation of the Serbian language.
“If I spend 12 years here, like Seselj did, without the possibility of being professionally alive, that would impose egregious punitive measures that should not be applied in the civilised world,” Karadzic said.
Karadzic, who is accused of genocide and other wartime crimes in Bosnia and Herzegovina, is currently awaiting his verdict, which is expected to be delivered in October this year. He has been in custody since July 2008, following his arrest in Belgrade.
A psychiatrist by profession, Karadzic has published several volumes of poetry from the 1960s onwards, some of them during the war years and others while he was on the run.
Karadzic also warned the court that his health had deteriorated. He complained of “an increase in blood glucose levels” but said that so far the problem was not worsening.
He claimed that “the UN’s detention system produces illness in many people”, alleging “an explosion of malignant diseases” that could possibly be caused by construction material used in the Tribunal buildings, and called for an investigation.
Presiding judge O-gon Kwon instructed Karadzic to address all his questions to the management of the Hague Tribunal’s detention unit in Scheveningen, adding that the trial chamber would deal with them if it was proved that his rights had been violated.
