Top war crimes suspect arrested in Serbia By DUSAN STOJANOVIC, Associated Press Writer
9 minutes ago Former
Bosnian Serb President Radovan Karadzic, accused architect of massacres
and the politician considered most responsible for the deadly siege of
Sarajevo, was arrested Monday evening in a Serbian police raid ending
his 13 years as the world's most-wanted war crimes fugitive. His
alleged partner in the persecution and "cleansing" of tens of thousands
of Bosnian Muslims and Croats, former Bosnian Serb military chief Ratko
Mladic, remained at large. A psychiatrist turned diehard Serbian
nationalist politician, Karadzic is the suspected mastermind of mass
killings that the U.N. war crimes tribunal described as "scenes from
hell, written on the darkest pages of human history." They include the
1995 massacre of 8,000 Muslims in Srebrenica, Europe's worst slaughter
since World War II. "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 tribunal's head prosecutor. Serbian President
Boris Tadic's office said Karadzic, 63, was arrested "in an action by
the Serbian security services" and taken before the investigative judge
of Serbia's war crimes court, indicating imminent extradition to the
U.N. war crimes court in The Hague, Netherlands. A Serbian
police source, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not
allowed to talk to the media, said Karadzic was seized in a Belgrade
suburb after weeks of surveillance of his safe house and a tip from a
foreign intelligence service. Authorities said Karadzic was
detained Monday evening in a raid, but his attorney said it occurred
Friday on a bus. "He just said that these people showed him a police
badge and than he was taken to some place and kept in the room. And
that is absolutely against the law what they did," Sveta Vujacic told
AP Television News. If Karadzic is transferred to the U.N.
tribunal, he would be the 44th Serb suspect extradited to the tribunal.
The others include former President Slobodan Milosevic, who was ousted
in 2000 and died in 2006 while on trial on war crimes charges. Serbia
braced for a possible reaction from ultra-nationalists who are believed
to have helped shelter Karadzic and Mladic over the years. Heavily
armed special forces were deployed around the war-crimes court in
Belgrade as dozens of Karadzic supporters gathered nearby. Several were
arrested after attacking reporters in front of the courthouse.
Karadzic's brother, Luka, was also seen arriving at the location in
central Belgrade. Serbian police also deployed throughout
central Belgrade as well as in front of the U.S. Embassy, which was
targeted in nationalist rioting over Kosovo's declaration of
independence in February. The White House called the arrest "an
important demonstration of the Serbian government's determination to
honor its commitment to cooperate with the International Criminal
Tribunal." In the Bosnian capital of Sarajevo — besieged
throughout the war by Bosnian Serb nationalists — streets were jammed
late Monday as Bosnian Muslims celebrated the arrest. Operating
from strongholds in Pale and Vraca high above the city, the Serbs
starved, sniped and bombarded the center of Sarajevo, controlling
nearly all roads into and out. Inhabitants were kept alive only by a
thin lifeline of food aid and supplies provided by UN donors and
peacekeepers, and risked their lives merely walking down the street,
shopping in a market or driving on one of the main roads, which became
known as "Sniper Alley." The siege, which began in April 1992,
was not officially lifted until February 1996, after NATO intervention
and the implementation of the Dayton Peace Accords. During that time,
an estimated 10,000 people had died in and around the city. Serbia
has been under increasing international pressure to find Karadzic and
turn him over. Still, his arrest came as a surprise to many. His
whereabouts had been a mystery to U.N. war crimes prosecutors unlike
those of Mladic, who had last been spotted living in Belgrade in 2005. "He
was at large because the Yugoslav army was protecting him. But this guy
in my view was worse than Milosevic," Richard Holbrooke, former U.S.
ambassador who negotiated an end to the Bosnian War, told CNN. "He was
the intellectual leader." Holbrooke calculated the Karadzic is
responsible, directly or indirectly, for the deaths of 300,000 people,
because without him there would have been no war or genocide. The
charges against him, last amended in May 2000, include genocide,
extermination, murder, deportation, inhumane acts, and other crimes
committed against Bosnian Muslim, Bosnian Croat and other non-Serb
civilians in Bosnia during the 1992-1995 war. "These offenses
include a brutal campaign of ethnic cleansing directed at non-Serbs,
organized attacks on places of worship, the operation of concentration
camps, and the mass murder of thousands of Bosnian Muslim and Bosnian
Croat civilians," the White House statement added. Karadzic was
born to a poor rural family in Montenegro. He trained as a psychiatrist
and moved to Sarajevo with his wife and two children in the 1960s. A
flamboyant gambler and sometime poet, Karadzic became a founding member
of the Serbian Democratic Party in Bosnia in 1990. Two years later, he
was elected president of the three-person presidency of the breakaway
Serbian republic in Bosnia, soon after Bosnia was recognized as an
independent state by the United Nations. He became sole president of
the Serb Republic in Bosnia that year, remaining in that position until
1996 and also serving as supreme commander of the armed forces. Karadzic
hobnobbed with international negotiators and his interviews were top
news items during the 3 1/2-year Bosnian war. But his life changed by
the time the war ended in late 1995 with tens of thousands of dead and
another 1.8 million driven from their homes. He was indicted twice by
the U.N. tribunal on genocide charges stemming from his alleged crimes
against Bosnia's Muslims and Croats. Karadzic's reported
hide-outs included Serbian Orthodox monasteries and refurbished
mountain caves in remote eastern Bosnia. Some newspaper reports said he
had at times disguised himself as a priest by shaving off his trademark
silver mane and donning a brown cassock. The fugitive's wife,
Ljiljana, told The Associated Press by phone from her home in
Karadzic's former stronghold, Pale, that her daughter Sonja had called
her before midnight. "As the phone rang, I knew something was
wrong. I'm shocked. Confused. At least now, we know he is alive,"
Ljiljana Karadzic said, declining further comment. The European
Union said the arrest "illustrates the commitment of the new Belgrade
government to contributing to peace and stability in the Balkans
region." A statement from the EU presidency, currently held by
France, said the arrest was "an important step on the path to the
rapprochement of Serbia with the European Union." (This version
CORRECTS Corrects that Karadzic turned 63 last month, adds detail on
siege of Sarajevo, recasts attorney's comments. DELETES last 2 grafs
containing inaccurate material on separate suspect)
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