The Hague , Netherlands ( CNN ) -- Bosnian war crimes suspect Radovan Karadzic launched a full-throated attack on the International War Crimes Tribunal Tuesday , as he appeared at a hearing to discuss his refusal to appear for trial . He said he `` can not take part in something that has been bad from the start , and where my fundamental rights have been violated . '' Karadzic , who is accused of responsibility for the worst massacre in Europe since World War II , says he has had insufficient time to prepare his defense . He is representing himself . But Judge O-Gon Kwon told Karadzic it was the court , not the defendant , who decides when the case is ready for trial . He advised Karadzic to participate in order to get a fair trial . The judges will decide by the end of the week how to deal with the former Bosnian leader 's boycott of the proceedings , Judge Kwon said before adjourning the trial for the day . Karadzic , the Bosnian Serb leader during the bloody breakup of Yugoslavia in the early 1990s , faces 11 counts of genocide , war crimes and crimes against humanity . Memories of the massacre remain raw . Watch the video . The charges stem partly from the massacre of more than 7,000 Muslim men and boys at the town of Srebrenica , in what is know Bosnia and Herzegovina , in 1995 . Karadzic has been insisting he has not had enough time to prepare for the trial , saying there are 1.3 million pages of documents to study . He denied stalling , and said imposing a lawyer on him would not help . `` It is with joy that I am preparing for these proceedings , '' he said through a translator . `` Nobody can get through this material better than I can , no lawyer . The best possible solution would be that the defense be given sufficient time '' to prepare . He rejected prosecutor Hildegard Uertz-Retzlaff 's assertion that Tuesday 's proceedings constituted part of the trial . `` I hope that this is not some kind of a trick , '' he said . `` I am attending a status conference hearing . '' The court can not force a defendant to appear . Karadzic , as a `` self-representing accused , '' is the only one who can cross-examine witnesses and speak in court about the substance of the charges against him . However , judges can impose a lawyer on Karadzic if he continues to refuse to cooperate . The trial began without his presence on October 26 , more than a year after Karadzic was captured in Belgrade , the capital of Serbia . He had been on the run for more than 13 years and was living in disguise in Belgrade , practicing alternative medicine at a clinic . Karadzic faces life in prison if he is convicted . The court can not impose the death penalty . The 1992-95 Bosnian conflict was the longest of the wars spawned by the breakup of Yugoslavia in the early 1990s . Backed by the government of then-Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic , Bosnian Serb forces seized control of more than half the country and launched a campaign against the Muslim and Croat populations . Karadzic was removed from power in 1995 , when the Dayton Accords that ended the Bosnian war barred anyone accused of war crimes from holding office . Milosevic died in 2006 while on trial at The Hague .
Karadzic appears at hearing at International Criminal Tribunal to discuss his refusal to appear for war crimes trial . Karadzic leader is accused of responsibility for worst massacre in Europe since the Bosnian war . Karadzic , who is representing himself , says he has had insufficient time to prepare his defense . Karadzic was arrested more than a decade in Serbia after more than a decade on the run .