Former Bosnian Serb Leader To Face Charges Of War Crimes, Genocide

Radovan Karadzic grew a long, white beard to conceal his identity and even managed to openly practise alternative medicine while in hiding, officials said Tuesday in revealing details of the war crimes fugitive's capture after more than a decade on the run.

Karadzic, the wartime leader of Bosnian Serbs, was arrested Monday night in a Belgrade suburb, officials said. A judge has ordered his transfer to the United Nations war crimes tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands, to face genocide charges, war crimes prosecutor Vladimir Vukcevic said.
  
Karadzic has three days to appeal the ruling. His lawyer, Sveta Vujacic, said he will launch the process to fight extradition on the last day, Friday, to thwart authorities' wishes for his immediate transfer.
  
Karadzic -- accused of masterminding the deadly wartime siege of Sarajevo and the executions of up to 8,000 Muslims in Srebrenica during Bosnia's 1992-95 war, Europe's worst massacre since the Second World War -- had topped the tribunal's most-wanted list for years.
  
Government official Rasim Ljajic said Karadzic, once known for his distinctively coifed hairdo, was unrecognizable.
  
"His false identity was very convincing," Vukcevic said. "Even his landlords were unaware of his identity."
  
Karadzic used a false name, Dragan Dabic, Ljajic said.
  
The editor in chief of Belgrade's "Healthy Life" magazine, Goran Kojic, said he was shocked when he saw the photo of Karadzic on TV, recognizing him as a regular contributor to the publication.
  
"It never even occurred to me that this man with a long white beard and hair was Karadzic," Kojic said.
  
Karadzic's whereabouts had been a mystery since he went on the run in 1998, with his hideouts reportedly including monasteries and mountain caves in remote eastern Bosnia.
  
Serbian security services found Karadzic, 63, on Monday while looking for another top war crimes suspect facing genocide charges, Bosnian Serb wartime commander general Ratko Mladic, Ljajic said.
  
Karadzic "was arrested Monday evening near Belgrade while changing locations," he said. "International pressure was to arrest Mladic, and a few had expected that Karadzic would be captured."
  
A judge finished interrogating Karadzic on Tuesday and issued the order for his extradition.
  
Ljajic refused to reveal more details about his arrest, saying Karadzic's movements are being analyzed and will be kept secret until Mladic's capture. "We are absolutely determined to finish this job," he said.
  
Karadzic -- disguised by the bushy beard and glasses -- managed to move freely while living in a new part of Belgrade and working at a private clinic, Ljajic said, holding up a photo of a much thinner-looking Karadzic.
  
Governments worldwide hailed the arrest of the man described by the tribunal as the mastermind of "scenes from hell, written on the darkest pages of human history."
  
German Chancellor Angela Merkel called it a "historic moment."
  
"The victims need to know: Massive human rights violations do not go unpunished," she said in Berlin.
  
European Union foreign ministers meeting in Brussels said the arrest sets Serbia firmly on the path toward EU membership.
  
"We have waited for this for 13 years. Finally. Finally," said French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said in Brussels. "This is a very good thing for the rapprochement of Serbia with the European Union."
  
In Sarajevo, Bosnian Muslims rushed into the streets Monday night to celebrate the news of Karadzic's arrest.
  
"This is a very important day for the victims who have waited for this arrest for over a decade," said the tribunal's head prosecutor, Serge Brammertz. "It clearly demonstrates that nobody is beyond the reach of the law and that sooner or later all fugitives will be brought to justice."
  
During the siege of Sarajevo that began in 1992, Bosnian Serb troops starved, sniped and b****arded the city centre, operating from strongholds in Pale and Vraca high above the city and controlling nearly all roads in and out.
  
Inhabitants were kept alive by a thin lifeline of food aid and supplies provided by UN donors and peacekeepers. Walking down the street to shop for groceries or driving down a main road that became known as "Sniper Alley" was a risk to their lives.
  
The siege was not officially over until February 1996. An estimated 10,000 people died.
  
The international tribunal indicted Karadzic on genocide charges in 1995. The psychiatrist and self-styled poet-turned-hardline Serbian nationalist continue to wield behind-the-scenes power over Bosnian Serbs, occasionally appearing in public before going into hiding three years later.
  
The worst massacre was in Srebrenica in 1995, when Serb troops led by Mladic overran the UN-protected enclave sheltering Bosnian Muslims. Mladic's troops rounded up the entire population and took the men away for execution.
  
By war's end in late 1995, an estimated 250,000 people were dead and another 1.8 million driven from their homes.
  
Under the UN indictment, Karadzic faces 11 counts of genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and other atrocities committed between 1992 to 1996.
  
He would be the 44th Serb suspect sent to the tribunal in The Hague. The others include former president Slobodan Milosevic, who died there in 2006 while on trial.

 

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A summary of the charges:

• Six counts of genocide and complicity in genocide (in Srebrenica and elsewhere in Bosnia).
• Two counts of crimes against humanity.
• One count of violations of the laws or customs of war.
• One count of a grave breach of the Geneva Conventions governing wartime conduct.
• One count of persecution.
• Two counts of deportations and other inhumane acts.
• One count of inflicting terror upon civilians.
• One count of taking hostages.

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Key dates in the life of former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, arrested Monday on U.N. genocide charges:

• June 19, 1945: Born in Savnik, Yugoslavia, in what is now the Republic of Montenegro.
• July 12, 1990: A founding member of the Serbian Democratic Party in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
• March 27, 1992: Becomes president of Serbia's National Security Council.
• April 6, 1992: Bosnia is recognized as an independent state by the United Nations.
• May 12, 1992: Elected president of the three-person presidency of the Serbian republic in Bosnia.
• Dec. 17, 1992 - July 19, 1996: Serves as sole president of Serb Republic in Bosnia. He is also supreme commander of the armed forces.
• July 1, 1991 - Nov. 30, 1995: According to the U.N. indictment, Karadzic participates in war crimes in order to gain control of parts of Bosnia and Herzegovina that have been proclaimed part of the Serb Republic, using terror tactics and a campaign of ethnic cleansing.
• April 1, 1992 - November 30, 1995: Bosnian Serb forces engaged in a 44-month siege of Sarajevo, the Bosnian capital.
• July 11 - 18, 1995: Bosnian Serb forces killed thousands of Bosnian Muslim men and boys in and around the town of Srebrenica.
• 1996: Karadzic vanishes from public eye.
• 2003: Bosnia's top international official freezes bank accounts and other assets of Karadzic's close relatives who are suspected of helping him hide.
• July 2005: Karadzic's wife makes public appeal for him to surrender "for the sake of your family."
• 2005: Karadzic publishes a book of poetry in Serbia, titled "Under The Left Breast Of The Century." A spokeswoman in The Hague expresses outrage that he is free to do so.
• July 21, 2008. Karadzic is arrested in Serbia in a raid by Serbian security forces.

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Excerpts from the 1995 U.N. war crimes tribunal indictment charging former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic and his wartime military commander, Gen. Ratko Mladic, with genocide and crimes against humanity in Bosnia:

"They are criminally responsible for the unlawful confinement, murder, rape, sexual assault, torture, beating, robbery and inhumane treatment of civilians; the targeting of political leaders, intellectuals and professionals; the unlawful deportation and transfer of civilians; the unlawful shelling of civilians; the unlawful appropriation and plunder of real and personal property; the destruction of homes and businesses; and the destruction of places of worship."

"Thousands of Bosnian Muslim and Bosnian Croat civilians, including women, children and elderly persons, were detained ... for protracted periods of time. They were not afforded judicial process and their internment was not justified by military necessity. They were detained, in large measure, because of their national, religious and political identity. The conditions in the detention facilities were inhumane and brutal ...

"In many instances, women and girls who were detained were raped at the camps or taken from the detention centers and raped or otherwise sexually abused at other locations. Daily food rations provided to detainees were inadequate and often amounted to starvation rations. Medical care for the detainees was insufficient or nonexistent and the general hygienic conditions were grossly inadequate."

"Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic, individually and in concert with others, planned, instigated, ordered or otherwise aided and abetted in the planning, preparation or execution of unlawful attacks against the civilian population and individual civilians with weapons such as mortars, rockets and artillery."

"Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic, individually and in concert with others planned, instigated, ordered or otherwise aided and abetted in the planning, preparation or execution of the destruction of sacred sites or knew or had reason to know that subordinates were about to damage or destroy these sites or had done so and failed to take necessary and reasonable measures to prevent them from doing so or to punish the perpetrators thereof."

"Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic, individually and in concert with others planned, instigated, ordered or otherwise aided and abetted in the planning, preparation or execution of the taking of civilians, that is U.N. peacekeepers, as hostages and, additionally, using them as 'human shields.'"