Alleged war criminal Radovan Karadzic appeared in court yesterday, and refused to enter a plea.

LONDON, Aug. 29 — Former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic declined to enter a plea Friday in a courtroom in The Hague, refusing to recognize the legitimacy of the U.N. war crimes tribunal bringing genocide and other charges against him.

“This court is representing itself falsely as a court of the international community, whereas it is in fact a court of NATO, whose aim is to liquidate me,” said Karadzic, who faces charges relating to the 1995 massacre of 8,000 Muslim men and boys in the town of Srebrenica and other crimes during the 1992-1995 Bosnian war. …

Judge Iain Bonomy, facing Karadzic in scarlet robes, told Karadzic that Friday’s hearing was not about the court’s jurisdiction, but simply on how he planned to plead. Karadzic, 63, faces 11 charges, including genocide counts relating to the siege of Sarajevo, in which thousands of people were killed in shelling and sniper fire, and the Srebrenica massacre, the deadliest atrocity in Europe since the end of World War II.