A few days after Radovan Karadžić's arrest in Belgrade was announced on žićthe 21st of July, his supporters started protesting against his transfer to the ICTY in The Hague, both in the streets and in Facebook (in various groups such as Free Radovan Karadžić, Freedom for Radovan Karadžić or many others). On the 29th of July the Serbian Radical Party (SRS) organized a rally that was attended by around 15,000 people and that ended up in violent clashes between some of the demonstrators and the riot police leaving 47 people injured. LimbicNutrition Weblog liveblogged the protests and posted a series of photos of the aftermath of the riots and the damages caused by it. He described the clashes as follows: It all happened very fast, with a group of hooligans spotting a relatively isolated unit of riot police, putting on masks and attacking. I think the incident could have been prevented by a more organised police response. The police were deployed side-on to the advancing hooligans (lining the road), and it took their commander way too long to order them to redeploy as a phalanx (lined up across the road). Eric Gordy of East Ethnia considered the protests to be “a failure in every respect”: The turnout was low, the speeches were bad, the goals were not clearly stated, and the organisers failed to control the crowd. This is probably also why speakers were chosen from the D-list of Serbian politics: luminaries like Kosta Čavoški and Bora Đorđević. […] the only element of the meeting that made news was the violent confrontation between skinheads and police, who this time around did not have orders to let the hooligans destroy anything they wanted. Whilst the protests were taking place in the streets of Belgrade, the Serbian government was preparing to fly Radovan Karadžić out of the country to The Hague. According to Byzantine Blog, his transfer was to take place at 10pm but was delayed until around 3:45 a.m. Wednesday because the “pilot of the Serbian Government's air fleet assigned the task to fly Dr. Karadžić to be delivered to the Hague, refused to fly the plane and assist in delivering” him. Radovan Karadžić's initial appearance in the ICTY for an arraignment was scheduled for Thursday 31st at 4pm, during which he confirmed his identity and heard the judge read the charges against him, as described by the Srebrenica Genocide Blog: Gaunt and visibly shaken, Karadzic listened as the Dutch UN Judge Alphons Orie read out a chilling list of atrocities contained in a lengthy 25-page indictment of war crimes, including including: genocide, complicity in genocide, crimes against humanity, extermination, violation of the customs of war, murder and the taking of hostages. Karadzic declined to enter a plea to the 11 charges against him. Besides deferring to enter a plea, in this initial hearing Karadžić indicated that he would represent himself (like Milošević did). He has a further 30 days in which to enter a plea, and Judge Orie set the 29th of August for the next hearing. Moreover, the prosecution indicated that it intends to file an amended indictment, because of changes to the law and to the evidence available since the original indictment was last ammended in 2000. Fedja of the blog Rants of a hyphenated researcher didn't appreciate this postponement: Even though they had 13 years to prepare a polished, proof-read indictment against Karadzic, the prosecution said today that it would “amend” the indictment, giving Karadzic 30 extra days to enter a plea! Just to enter a plea! And this was not even something Karadzic had orchestrated. It was the prosecution handing him extra time on a golden plate. Karadžić also claimed that he had been seized and held by “unknown civilians” three days before the official arrest date given to the court, and referred to an alleged deal made with Richard Holbrooke, the former US ambassador to the United Nations. Eric Gordy of East Ethnia, describes Karadžić's claims: […] he felt he had been protected by an agreement he had made in 1996 with Richard Holbrooke, who was then the US envoy overseeing the negotiation and implementation of the Dayton agreement in Bosnia-Hercegovina. As the story goes, the offer was made to Karadžić that if he were to withdraw from public life, in return for this the United States would either (in some versions) see to it that he would not be pursued and arrested or (in more dramatic versions) see to it that the charges against him would be withdrawn. The US State Department denies that there was an agreement, as does Richard Holbrooke. But of course denials do not tell us anything about factual states, merely what somebody would prefer for us to believe.