Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic began his defence against charges of genocide at The Hague on Tuesday, telling the court that he should be rewarded for his actions during the Bosnian war.
In his statement he told the court,
"I should have been rewarded for all the good things that I've done because I did everything within human power to avoid the war and to reduce the human suffering,
"Neither I nor anyone else that I know thought that there would be a genocide against those who were not Serbs."
Dismissing the charges against him as "lies, propaganda and rumours", Karadzic continued to assert that no genocide took place in Srebrenica where over 7,000 Muslim men and boys were murdered.
He also claimed that he had stopped the Bosnian Serb army several times as they were close to victory in order to ensure the safety of civilians.
Karadzic also went on to deny charges that civilians were intentionally shelled, stating that footage from shell attacks, bringing up one attack on a street market in 1994, were faked.
He called it a 'shameless orchestration', stating,
"We also saw android mannequins being thrown onto trucks, creating this show for the world."
See the 10 charges against Karadzic, which include genocide and crimes against humanity, here.
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