THE HAGUE — In a rambling letter released by the war crimes tribunal on Friday, Radovan Karadzic raised what he called “serious irregularities” in his treatment and said that an international “media witch hunt” had jeopardized his chances for a fair trial.

The four-page signed submission, filled with arguments and accusations, also went into greater detail about the deal that Mr. Karadzic, the former Bosnian Serb leader, contends he made with the United States in 1996 to help him evade justice.

Mr. Karadzic had begun to read the letter out loud on Thursday during his first appearance before the international tribunal, but the judge stopped him, saying he would have only two minutes to speak. Mr. Karadzic was invited to submit the letter to the registrar, whose office translated it from Serbian and released it as a trial document.

In the letter, he offered bitter criticism of the former American envoy Richard C. Holbrooke; Mr. Karadzic claimed in court on Thursday that he had brokered a deal with Mr. Holbrooke that would enable him to avoid a trial. Mr. Karadzic also asserted in the letter that Madeleine K. Albright, secretary of state at the time, had proposed that he drop out of sight by opening a private clinic somewhere abroad.

Ms. Albright suggested that “I get out of the way and go to Russia, Greece or Serbia and open a private clinic or at least go to Bijeljina,” he wrote.

Mr. Holbrooke, who brokered the peace agreement that ended the war in the Balkans in 1995, denied that he had agreed to any deal with Mr. Karadzic, calling the accusation “ridiculous.”

In an interview, Mr. Holbrooke said that in July 1996 he had traveled to Belgrade and, over 10 hours of talks, negotiated a signed agreement forcing Mr. Karadzic to resign as the Bosnian Serb leader, with Slobodan Milosevic, then the president of Serbia, also pressing him to quit.

“There was an agreement he would leave power,” Mr. Holbrooke said. “He got nothing in return.”

During the hearing on Thursday, Mr. Karadzic was required to hear a summary of his indictment. Occasionally twitching his mouth, he stared straight ahead as Judge Alphons Orie cited from the catalog of crimes from the ethnic war that he led in Bosnia and that turned into genocide.

But Mr. Karadzic became more animated in court when he began to list his grievances, what he called the “many drastic irregularities.” His written statement elaborates on old rumors that Mr. Holbrooke had brokered a deal with him to avoid arrest.

The offer, he asserted, required him to withdraw from public life, declining all interview requests and offers to write articles or books.

“Mr. Holbrooke undertook on behalf of the U.S.A. that I would not be tried before this tribunal and that I should understand that for a while there would be very sharp rhetoric against me, so that my followers would not hamper the implementation of the Dayton agreement.”

That agreement, which ended the Balkans war, was negotiated and signed in Dayton, Ohio.

Mr. Karadzic, who was arrested in Belgrade on July 21, according to the Serbian government, described in the letter his life after leaving office in 1996. He said that he had kept his side of the bargain, lying low to avoid the attention of international troops “whom I used to pass quietly,” and also to avoid “possible adventurers and glory hunters.”

Mr. Karadzic also contended that the State Department had urged the tribunal’s chief prosecutor, Richard Goldstone, who had indicted him a year earlier, “to refrain from hunting me.” Mr. Goldstone threatened to resign “if this happened,” he wrote.

In a telephone interview on Friday, Mr. Goldstone, who was the chief prosecutor from 1994 to 1996, scoffed at the claims. “I cannot imagine what he is talking about,” said Mr. Goldstone, a South African judge. “The whole thing does not make sense. Resign because of what?”

Mr. Goldstone said the United States had not asked him to withdraw Mr. Karadzic’s indictment. “No one could ask me to do that,” he said.

Mr. Karadzic said that he had tried to meet his end of the deal, but that it eventually became apparent that there were attempts to have him killed — and he blamed Mr. Holbrooke for them. “It is clear that, unable to fulfill the commitments he had undertaken on behalf of the U.S.A., he switched to Plan B, the liquidation of Radovan Karadzic,” he wrote.

Some observers of the trial of Mr. Milosevic, the former Serbian president and Mr. Karadzic’s mentor, said they saw parallels between the men. Mr. Milosevic often used his time in court to criticize and try to embarrass the West.

Christian Schwarz-Schilling, a formal international envoy to the region, told German radio on Friday that he did not rule out that Mr. Karadzic would reveal embarrassing secrets during his trial.

“I believe Karadzic knows certain things which in any case aren’t pleasant for the international community,” he said. “I suppose that he, having been involved in the events, will have to say some new things which were unknown until now.”

These might involve what other governments knew in 1995 of the impending seizure of the United Nations-protected enclaves of Srebrenica and Zepa by troops under Mr. Karadzic’s command, assisted by forces from Serbia. The fall of Srebrenica ended with the execution of nearly 8,000 unarmed Bosnian Muslim men and boys.

The allegations in Mr. Karadzic text, including his fear that Mr. Holbrooke was, and still is, out to kill him may seem like the fruits of a fevered mind.

Mr. Holbrooke has insisted that there was no deal for immunity for Mr. Karadzic. But he may well have left room for ambiguity or provided hints during talks in Belgrade that Mr. Karadzic took to be a promise that international troops would not arrest him.

In his book “To End a War” (Random House, 1998), Mr. Holbrooke wrote that in 1996, heading for the talks to persuade Mr. Karadzic to give up power, he called Strobe Talbott, then the deputy secretary of state. He wrote that Mr. Talbott told him, “Just use that old creative ambiguity.”

Graham Bowley contributed reporting from New York.

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