Radovan Karadzic was planning to lodge a last-minute appeal last night against his extradition to face trial for genocide as his New Age guru told how he trained the former Bosnian Serb leader in the bioenergy healing techniques that he used to establish a new identity in Belgrade.

Dr Karadzic, 63, is refusing prison food in his holding cell in the Serbian capital. He is living off spring water, almonds, hazelnuts and raisins, his family said, in the belief that his ascetic diet will help him to live until at least 120.

Mina Minic, a former Serb army colonel who was Dr Karadzic’s alternative health teacher, told The Times that he had no regrets about training “Dr Dabic” and giving him a key to the consulting room attached to his suburban house.

Dr Karadzic slept on a makeshift bed and could move around as he pleased as he reestablished himself in society. “He was a very disciplined student and had the highest power you could wish for,” the 78-year-old mystic said, sitting in the cluttered room where the fugitive stayed.

Mr Minic said that the bearded man who first knocked on his door late in 2005 or early 2006 claiming to be a Croat from America became his best pupil. “I taught him radiostasis and the healing of all illnesses, physical and psychological,” he said.

“Radovan is now the highest-level practitioner of this type of healing. He was the best and most talented pupil I had in 40 years of doing this job.”

Mr Minic proudly displayed his collection of neutralisers – metal tubes of various sizes, each with nine metal rings welded to the end – that he crafted and patented. He taught Dr Karadzic how to use these for diagnosis by asking the patient to hold one in each hand, close his eyes and visualise a colour.

“If it is a green colour, the patient must be asked to imagine walking through green valleys,” he said. “If it is a grey colour, the patient must focus on being on a plane in the sky. The patient must focus his mind on landing the plane, and in this way he will bring his life back on to the ground.”

Mr Minic also showed his pupil how to use avisek, a plumbline with a brass weight at each end, to diagnose physical or psychological ailments by letting it swing in one direction or another for a “yes” or “no” answer to questions.

The visek also led Mr Minic to distrust his star pupil. “[It] warned me that he was a spy. I thought he might be stealing all my knowledge, so I did not let him sleep in the house, only in the clinic. I also suspected something was wrong because he would not take any food or drink from me. I thought maybe he was worried about being poisoned.”

He said that Dr Karadzic passed his five-day course with flying colours and then started seeing patients with him occasionally until his arrest this week. Mr Minic said that the pair had written a book together that he still hoped to publish.

Svetozar Vujacic, Dr Karadzic’s lawyer, said yesterday that he would lodge the appeal against his transfer to The Hague before the midnight deadline. A three-judge panel of the Serbian special war crimes court will have three days to decide whether to extradite Dr Karadzic, a decision that must also be signed off by a government minister.

Dr Karadzic faces 11 charges including genocide, complicity in genocide, extermination, murder, wilful killing, persecutions, deportation and inhumane acts against Muslims, Croats and other nonSerb civilians.

There were claims yesterday that Serbian security forces could have been led to Dr Karadzic unwittingly by his nephew, Dragan Karadzic, who attended alternative health lectures given by “Dr Dabic”.

Dr Karadzic’s female companion for the past seven months, Mila Damjanov, claimed that she often saw the young man at his events but did not realise who he was until Dr Dabic’s real identity was revealed this week. The Serb security forces are known to have been following members of Dr Karadzic’s family but his relatives have denied knowing about his new identity.

Times Recommends

• Rio Tinto four held as China prepares case
• Diplomats must keep heads down and trousers up
• When in Rome should one make like Berlusconi?