THE HAGUE — A lawyer for Radovan Karadzic said on Wednesday that his client, newly shorn of the bushy white hair and beard that disguised him for years, would defend himself in any war crimes trial if he was handed over to the United Nations tribunal here.

“He is convinced that with the help of God he will win,” the lawyer, Svetozar Vujacic, said in Belgrade, the Serbian capital. Mr. Karadzic, the former Bosnian Serb leader, was arrested on Monday after nearly 13 years as a fugitive.

At The Hague hasty meetings have been held to deal with Mr. Karadzic’s arrest, which stunned court officials because he was indicted in 1995. Mr. Karadzic was charged with genocide and war crimes. He is suspected of being the architect of a massacre that year of nearly 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys at Srebrenica. He would be the most notorious war crimes defendant here since Slobodan Milosevic, the former Yugoslav president, who was arrested in 2001 and put on trial for war crimes in 2002. Mr. Milosevic also served as his own lawyer.

Mr. Karadzic was arrested just as the court was about to break for a three-week summer recess. But in the sprawling building on the outskirts of The Hague, judges must now convene a panel of three to form a trial chamber for Mr. Karadzic, who is contesting his extradition from Serbia.

Court officials said there is ample room at the tribunal’s cellblock in a high-security Dutch prison on the outskirts of The Hague.

“We are ready to receive Mr. Karadzic,” said Nerma Jelacic, a spokeswoman for the court, adding that only 37 inmates occupy the available cells, which can accommodate twice as many people.

If Mr. Karadzic is unsuccessful in fighting extradition, he would likely be transferred to The Hague over the weekend or early next week, said Bruno Vekaric, spokesman for Serbian prosecutors.

In Serbia, more details about Mr. Karadzic’s life as a fugitive emerged on Wednesday, with local media saying he had a mistress, regularly visited a local pub called the Madhouse and invented an imaginary family in the United States.

Blic, a Serbian newspaper, reported that Mr. Karadzic, who went by the name Dragan Dabic, had been smitten by an attractive middle-aged woman named Mila, whom he took everywhere. During his time as a fugitive he posed as an alternative medicine and lifestyle guru. Colleagues of Mr. Karadzic who worked with him at the health magazine Healthy Life told Blic that he introduced Mila as his wife and the great love of his life.

The newspaper also reported that the editor of Healthy Life, to which Mr. Karadzic contributed, had asked him to show his medical diploma. Mr. Karadzic had refused, saying that his ex-wife had taken it with her after they divorced.

Serbian media also reported on Wednesday that the police were investigating who helped Mr. Karadzic obtain a false identity, with officials suspicious that he may have assumed the identity of a dead man.

The prospect of Mr. Karadzic’s defending himself at any eventual trial was greeted with much weariness by prosecutors here.

Recalling the drawn-out Milosevic trial, prosecutors have pleaded repeatedly with the judges to block the practice of self-defense, arguing that it wastes the court’s time, distracts from its legal work and lends itself to turning the courtroom into political theater.

But international law experts have also criticized prosecutors for drawing up overly ambitious and cumbersome indictments.

Mr. Milosevic, the first head of state to face charges of war crimes and genocide, tied up proceedings with long bouts of illness and delayed hearings with irrelevant speeches while acting as his own lawyer. As the four-year trial drew to a close, Mr. Milosevic died in his cell here in 2006 before a verdict was reached.

Similarly, Vojislav Seselj, a Serb nationalist leader, is now also using his trial as a political platform from which he has insulted the judges and delivered lengthy nationalist diatribes.

“The prosecution has consistently opposed self-representation because the cases are so complex,” said Olga Kavran, the spokeswoman for the prosecution. “A lot of evidence requires documentation and the procedures are a mixture of common and civil law. You have to be versed in both systems. It is best for all parties if qualified lawyers are involved.”

But defendants here do not have the automatic right to serve as their own lawyers.

“In principle he has the right to ask to defend himself,” Ms. Jelacic said, “But this is up to the judges. In the same way, he has the right to request technical help or financial aid, but the court will have to rule on this.”

When Mr. Karadzic appears in court here, he will be called on to enter a plea on charges that cover the 1992-95 war in Bosnia. He is charged with responsibility for the shelling and sniping of civilians during the more than three-year brutal siege of Sarajevo, as well as the massacre in Srebrenica.

The indictment, last amended in 2000, may not be upheld in its present form. Lawyers at the court said that the scope of some charges may be reduced to speed up proceedings. The United Nations Security Council has set a deadline for the court to close its cases by the end of 2008 and its appeals by 2010. But experts here said that, given Mr. Karadzic’s long-awaited arrival, the Council will have little choice but to extend the court’s mandate.

The indictment of Mr. Karadzic, experts said, may also have to be amended to take into account recent changes in court jurisprudence and rules.

Marlise Simons reported from The Hague, and Dan Bilefsky from Sarajevo, Bosnia.

Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company