Karadzic to enter war crimes plea next week

(CNN) -- A plea in the case of Radovan Karadzic, the former Bosnian Serb leader accused of war crimes, will be entered next week, the tribunal at The Hague said on Friday.

Karadzic did not enter a plea during his initial appearance on July 31 but will have to on August 29. And if he doesn't enter a plea, the pre-trial judge will do so, the court said.

Karadzic is being tried by the U.N.'s International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.

He is charged with 11 counts including genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes stemming from the 1992-95 war in Bosnia-Herzegovina, when he was president of a breakaway Serb republic. Watch Karadzic's first court appearance »

The Bosnian war was Europe's bloodiest conflict since World War II and 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 that introduced the term "ethnic cleansing" to the world.

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