After thirteen years on the run, Serbian war leader Radovan Karadzic has been arrested by police on war crimes charges, according to a statement released Monday by the office of Serbian President Boris Tadic. Karadzic has been indicted for his alleged collusion in the massacre of 8,000 Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica in 1995.
Associated Press is reporting an unnamed Serbian police source as saying the fanatical Serb nationalist as having been arrested in a suburb of the capital Belgrade after weeks of observation of a favourite safe house. The source said the police received a tip-off from a foreign intelligence service.
Associated Press is reporting an unnamed Serbian police source as saying the fanatical Serb nationalist as having been arrested in a suburb of the capital Belgrade after weeks of observation of a favourite safe house. The source said the police received a tip-off from a foreign intelligence service.
"This is a very important day for the victims who have waited for this arrest for over a decade. It is also an important day for international justice because it clearly demonstrates that nobody is beyond the reach of the law," said Serge Brammertz, the [U.N.} tribunal's head prosecutor.[source]The U.N. war crimes tribunal, based at The Hague, has described the killings as ""scenes from hell, written on the darkest pages of human history."
His co-accused for the murders, former Bosnian Serb military chief Ratko Mladic, remained at large.
His wife, Ljiljana Zelen-Karadzic, told reporters she was shocked to hear of his arrest, insisting she wasn't even sure the former leader was still alive. The news was relayed to her by her daughter Sonja by telephone. Zelen-Karadzic has previously called upon her husband to surrender.
Though pilloried in the West for his alleged role in ethnic cleansing
during the 1992-1995 Bosnian-Hercegovina War, Karadzic is still
regarded by ultra-right nationalists as a Serbian hero, who have been
willing to hide their former chief and protect him from arrest. Western intelligence services were supposed to know many times of his approximate location, an alleged "lack of political will" from the Serb Government had prevented his arrest.
However as the International herald Tribune notes, a change in the political wind in Belgrade may have sealed Karadzic's fate.
[The arrest] comes just weeks after a new pro-western coalition government in Serbia was formed whose overriding goal is to bring Serbia into the European Union, the world's biggest trading bloc. The EU has made delivering indicted war criminals to the Hague a precondition for Serbia's membership. [source]
For a number of varying profiles of the "world's most wanted man" see below.
Frontline series
BBC Profile
Social Science Research Network
Image top right. Radovan Karadžić in Moscow on 3 March 1994. Credit: Mikhail Evstafiev.
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What they did at that bridge was evil
and nobody in that town tried to stop it
all out of fear.
And I see these professional atheletes praising fear
as some sort of twisted motivator.
They are out of their minds !
Commercial propaganda design to subjigate the masses
through purely emotional control and response.
Can't these dum dums see this?
Fear gets people killed.
Fear is what got Europe into that place once again !
Fear is the mindkiller.
This is totally unacceptable
I want more arrests.
Get the rest of those demons because
this is the time to press on
into courage and away from fear.
Well at least he had thirteen free (questionably) years..and time to pay the price for his crimes. He surely has a lot of hair...Maybe they can cut it and sell for souvenirs...carol stanley www,spectacularlifeaftersixy.blogspot.com
But what price will the West-leaning Serbian government pay from hard-right Serb nationalists for the capture? Any thoughts?
He will get his comeuppance in court, it is just a pity that those other war criminals Bush @ Blair where not in the dock alongside him, now that would be Justice.
This guy killed 8,000 plus people and almost no one looked for him for 13 years, only now since Serbia wants in the EU do they "catch" him.
Bin Laden kills 3,000 plus people and the whole world is supposed to sacrafice to find him?
They should both be brought to justice as soon as possible, but why the difference?
I wonder why we are so hated in the Muslim world
Interesting comments Sean, thanks.
Wow, Sean I don't think I thought of it like that yet. Good point, I'd be pissed too.
We invaded Afghanistan (although it was justifiable,) a country double the size of Serbia and asked for complete international support (and pretty much got it) because Bin Laden murdered 3000+ people, but why didn't we invade or attempt to invade and capture murders almost three times worse then Bin Laden? Where was the international cry for support on this one?
Why does Serbia get on track into the EU now? should they not be punished for harboring terrorists? The Taliban harbored Bin Laden where are they now? They kept him free for 13+ years, WOW!
Is it justifiable to say that if a person who is a Muslim dies then it's not worth anything?
What makes Bin Laden worse?
The new generation of Serbs are just Pimps and Prostitutes starting from the Prime Minister down. They would sell their own mothers for a $ let alone their heroes.
There was only partial war crimes in Bosnia and none in Kossovo. The Croats were the unfortunate targets, but apart of that no people were killed, only islamics were.
This is the A-typical reaction to war criminals in my opinion. People only follow what extremely well publisized events show and mostly they don't want to learn the truth so they don't do the research to find out. Bin Laden and Karadzic are no different from Bush and all the other war mongers out there. They all killed people because in some messed up way they thought they were doing the right thing. I don't condone what they did, violence either, but it is human nature to do things when they want to and they all do what they want. If we were to harbour fugitives for 13 years for no more than killing someone in self-defense (not what Karadzic did but anyway) would we be condemned the same way? There is also a funny little clause with this story. During the Clinton administration, ex-president Bill Clinton made a deal with Karadzic that said that he had amnesty if he kept out of the news and kept his mouth shut about everything he had done. Bush has broken that agreement by allowing him to be captured. Who will even want to deal with the US after this? (And this isn't an attack on the people, only the administration). Even with the Freedom of Information Act, in many countries all people know is what the government tells them and almost all of that is BS. I feel sorry for all the Muslims that were killed. They are no different from us except that they were condemned for their choice of religion. Freedom to choose your own religion or form of beliefs? Yeah right.
Fascinating point Angel. How would people in the U.S. feel if the story about the Clinton/Bush administrations were proved to be doing deals with (alleged) war criminals?