Radovan Karadzic is closing his defence saying he takes "moral responsibility" for crimes committed by Bosnian Serbs but denying he ordered killings.
The wartime Bosnian Serb leader set out his case in a written brief before telling the UN tribunal there was not a shred of evidence against him.
He is accused in The Hague of genocide and other crimes, with one charge relating to the Srebrenica massacre.
Prosecutors have called for him to be given a life sentence if convicted.
The 69-year-old political leader of the Bosnian Serbs in the 1990s was handed over to the tribunal when he was arrested in 2008 after 13 years on the run.
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Radovan Karadzic is facing 11 charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity, as Anna Holligan reports
More than 7,500 Bosniak (Bosnian Muslim) men and boys, some as young as 12, were killed by Bosnian Serbs in the Srebrenica enclave in July 1995. The massacre is considered Europe's worst since World War Two.
The Balkan conflict emerged from the breakup of the former Yugoslavia, resulting in a bitter inter-ethnic series of wars from 1991 to 1999.
Self-assuredIn a written brief that runs to more than 800 pages, Radovan Karadzic argues that he was not aware of the Srebrenica killings but takes responsibility for "any crimes committed by citizens and forces of Republika Srpska (Bosnian Serb republic)".
As he conducted his own defence on Wednesday, he seemed more like a politician outlining his policies than a war crimes suspect facing life in prison, the BBC's Anna Holligan reports.
There was no shaking or stumbling in his delivery, she says. It was the self-assured performance of man who is comfortable in the spotlight.
"It is the Serb people that stand accused," he told his judges. "I know the truth, the prosecution knows the truth, they are trying to delude the court."
UN prosecutor Alan Tieger argued this week that "the policy of ethnic cleansing" had been fully exposed as had "Dr Karadzic as its driving force".
In all, Mr Karadzic faces 11 charges of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity.
He has been given 10 hours to speak in court, and will lay out his defence over two days.
The judges are expected to deliver their verdict in a year's time.
During the 1992-1995 war, Bosniaks sought refuge in the town of Srebrenica from the surrounding area as the Bosnian Serb army sought to expel non-Serb populations.
The UN had declared Srebrenica a "safe area" for civilians in 1993 but it fell in July 1995, after more than two years under siege.
Mr Karadzic is accused of orchestrating a campaign of ethnic cleansing together with former Bosnian Serb general Ratko Mladic.
He was arrested in 2008 in Belgrade, where he had spent years masquerading as a faith healer, heavily disguised.
Gen Mladic is being tried separately. Another key suspect, Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic, died in 2006 before the end of his trial.
More than 100,000 people died in the Bosnian war, in which atrocities were committed by all three warring sides.
Timeline of Srebrenica siege:6-8 July 1995: Bosnian Serb forces start shelling Srebrenica enclave
9 July: Bosnian Serbs step up shelling; thousands of Bosnian Muslim refugees flee to Srebrenica
10 July: Dutch peacekeepers request UN air support after Bosnian Serbs shell Dutch positions. Large crowds of refugees gather around Dutch positions
11 July: More than 20,000 refugees flee to main Dutch base at Potocari. Serbs threaten to kill Dutch hostages and shell refugees after Dutch F-16 fighters bomb Serb positions. Bosnian Serb commander Ratko Mladic enters Srebrenica and delivers ultimatum that Muslims must hand over weapons
12 July: An estimated 23,000 women and children are deported to Muslim territory; men aged 12-77 taken "for interrogation" and held in trucks and warehouses
13 July: First killings of unarmed Muslims take place near village of Kravica. Peacekeepers hand over some 5,000 Muslims sheltering at Dutch base in exchange for the release of 14 Dutch peacekeepers held by Bosnian Serbs
14 July: Reports of massacres start to emerge
Timeline: Siege of Srebrenica
The former Yugoslavia was a Socialist state created after German occupation in World War II and a bitter civil war. A federation of six republics, it brought together Serbs, Croats, Bosnian Muslims, Albanians, Slovenes and others under a comparatively relaxed communist regime. Tensions between these groups were successfully suppressed under the leadership of President Tito.
After Tito's death in 1980, tensions re-emerged. Calls for more autonomy within Yugoslavia by nationalist groups led in 1991 to declarations of independence in Croatia and Slovenia. The Serb-dominated Yugoslav army lashed out, first in Slovenia and then in Croatia. Thousands were killed in the latter conflict which was paused in 1992 under a UN-monitored ceasefire.
Bosnia, with a complex mix of Serbs, Muslims and Croats, was next to try for independence. Bosnia's Serbs, backed by Serbs elsewhere in Yugoslavia, resisted. Under leader Radovan Karadzic, they threatened bloodshed if Bosnia's Muslims and Croats - who outnumbered Serbs - broke away. Despite European blessing for the move in a 1992 referendum, war came fast.
Yugoslav army units, withdrawn from Croatia and renamed the Bosnian Serb Army, carved out a huge swathe of Serb-dominated territory. Over a million Bosnian Muslims and Croats were driven from their homes in ethnic cleansing. Serbs suffered too. The capital Sarajevo was besieged and shelled. UN peacekeepers, brought in to quell the fighting, were seen as ineffective.
International peace efforts to stop the war failed, the UN was humiliated and over 100,000 died. The war ended in 1995 after NATO bombed the Bosnian Serbs and Muslim and Croat armies made gains on the ground. A US-brokered peace divided Bosnia into two self-governing entities, a Bosnian Serb republic and a Muslim-Croat federation lightly bound by a central government.
In August 1995 the Croatian army stormed areas in Croatia under Serb control prompting thousands to flee. Soon Croatia and Bosnia were fully independent. Slovenia and Macedonia had already gone. Montenegro left later. In 1999 Kosovo's ethnic Albanians fought Serbs in another brutal war to gain independence. Serbia ended the conflict beaten, battered and alone.
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