It should be no surprise that, now he is to be brought before the international war crimes tribunal, Radovan Karadzic has decided to conduct his own defence.

As leader of the Bosnian Serbs he courted the media when he was orchestrating Europe’s bloodiest conflict since the second world war and, as emerged this week, he was not shy of publicity even during his dozen years in hiding. Masquerading as the bearded therapist Dragan Dabic, he wrote for Serbia’s Healthy Living magazine, spoke at conferences and distributed business cards proclaiming himself a bioenergist.