Former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic appeared before a U.N. war crimes judge for the first time on Thursday (July 31) to answer genocide charges.

Karadzic, who was arrested last week after more than a decade on the run, faces war crimes charges, including two counts of genocide over the 43-month siege of Sarajevo and the 1995 massacre of some 8,000 Muslims at Srebrenica.

The leader of Bosnian Serbs during the 1992-95 Bosnia war is the most prominent Balkan war crimes suspect arrested since late Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic, who died in detention in 2006 before his trial ended.

Helen Long reports.