Radovan Karadzic's road to the International Criminal Tribunal || world news
- 8 years ago
Radovan Karadzic's road to the International Criminal Tribunal
Radovan Karadžić (Serbian: Радован Караџић, pronounced [râdovaːn kârad͡ʒit͡ɕ]; born 19 June 1945) is a former Bosnian Serb politician and convicted war criminal who served as the President of Republika Srpska during the Bosnian War and sought the direct unification of that entity with Serbia.[1]
Educated as a psychiatrist, he co-founded the Serb Democratic Party in Bosnia and Herzegovina and served as the first President of Republika Srpska from 1992 to 1996. He was a fugitive from 1996 until July 2008 after having been indicted for war crimes by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY).[2] The indictment concluded there were reasonable grounds for believing he committed war crimes, including genocide against Bosnian Muslim and Bosnian Croat civilians during the Bosnian War (1992–95).[2] While a fugitive he worked at a private clinic in Belgrade, specialising in alternative medicine and psychology under an alias.[3] His nephew, Dragan Karadžić, has claimed in an interview to the Corriere della Sera that Radovan Karadžić attended Serie A football matches and that he visited Venice using a different alias (Petar Glumac).[4]
He was eventually arrested in Belgrade on 21 July 2008 and brought before Belgrade's War Crimes Court a few days later.[2] Extradited to the Netherlands, he is in the custody of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in the United Nations Detention Unit of Scheveningen, where he was charged with 11 counts of war crimes.[5][6] He is sometimes referred to by the Western media as the "Butcher of Bosnia",[7][8][9] a sobriquet also applied to former Army of Republika Srpska (VRS) General Ratko Mladić.[10][11][12] On 24 March 2016, he was found guilty of genocide in Srebrenica, war crimes and crimes against humanity, 10 of the 11 eleven charges in total, and sentenced to 40 years' imprisonment.
File picture taken upon Karadžić's arrest in November 1984
On 1 November 1984 the two were arrested for fraud and spent 11 months in detention before their friend Nikola Koljević managed to bail them out.[24][25] Due to a lack of evidence, Karadžić was released and his trial was brought to a halt. The trial was revived and on 26 September 1985 Karadžić was sentenced to three years in prison for embezzlement and fraud. As he had already spent over a year in detention, Karadžić did not serve the remaining sentence in prison.
On 31 July 2008, a summary of the charges were read out in court. Karadžić delayed his plea until 29 August 2008, due to the fact that an amended indictment is being prepared. Karadžić said he will enter his plea to the charges on 29 August. During his first hearing, Karadžić stated that Madeleine Albright, along with Richard Holbrooke, offered him a deal which would allow him not to be prosecuted for war crimes if he would disappear from public life and politics. According to Karadžić, Albright offered him to get out of the way and go to Russia, Greece, or Serbia and open a private clinic or to at least go to Bijeljina in northeastern Bosnia and Herzegovina.[32] He also said that Holbrooke or Albright would like to see him disappear and expressed the fear for his life by saying "I do not know how long the arm of Mr Holbrooke or Mrs Albright is...or whether that arm can reach me here".[33] Richard Holbrooke denied such claims,[34] calling them lies in a Spiegel interview shortly after Karadzic's arrest,[35] but Muhamed Sacirbey, Bosnian foreign minister at the time, said that a Karadžić-Holbrooke deal that was made in July 1996 was indeed in existence,[36] and former Bosnian Serb foreign minister Aleksa Buha claimed that he witnessed the agreement which was made during the night between 18 and 19 July 1996.[37] Claims of such a deal were also investigated by journalists before the capture and trial of Karadžić.[38]
After the allegations were broadcast internationally, the Serbian newspaper Blic claimed that Karadžić was under U.S. protection in exchange for him keeping a low profile and not participating in politics, quoting a "U.S. intelligence source" as saying that the protection ended in 2000 when the CIA intercepted a phone call of Karadžić in which it became apparent that Karadžić chaired a meeting of his old political party.[37] Greek newspaper Kathimerini reported on 6 August 2008, that according to a Serbian newspaper, a former court official wrote a book claiming that the United States and other Western states had a deal with Karadžić, protected him from arrest, and a U.S. diplomat told Karadzic that he could hide in a NATO base.
Radovan Karadžić (Serbian: Радован Караџић, pronounced [râdovaːn kârad͡ʒit͡ɕ]; born 19 June 1945) is a former Bosnian Serb politician and convicted war criminal who served as the President of Republika Srpska during the Bosnian War and sought the direct unification of that entity with Serbia.[1]
Educated as a psychiatrist, he co-founded the Serb Democratic Party in Bosnia and Herzegovina and served as the first President of Republika Srpska from 1992 to 1996. He was a fugitive from 1996 until July 2008 after having been indicted for war crimes by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY).[2] The indictment concluded there were reasonable grounds for believing he committed war crimes, including genocide against Bosnian Muslim and Bosnian Croat civilians during the Bosnian War (1992–95).[2] While a fugitive he worked at a private clinic in Belgrade, specialising in alternative medicine and psychology under an alias.[3] His nephew, Dragan Karadžić, has claimed in an interview to the Corriere della Sera that Radovan Karadžić attended Serie A football matches and that he visited Venice using a different alias (Petar Glumac).[4]
He was eventually arrested in Belgrade on 21 July 2008 and brought before Belgrade's War Crimes Court a few days later.[2] Extradited to the Netherlands, he is in the custody of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in the United Nations Detention Unit of Scheveningen, where he was charged with 11 counts of war crimes.[5][6] He is sometimes referred to by the Western media as the "Butcher of Bosnia",[7][8][9] a sobriquet also applied to former Army of Republika Srpska (VRS) General Ratko Mladić.[10][11][12] On 24 March 2016, he was found guilty of genocide in Srebrenica, war crimes and crimes against humanity, 10 of the 11 eleven charges in total, and sentenced to 40 years' imprisonment.
File picture taken upon Karadžić's arrest in November 1984
On 1 November 1984 the two were arrested for fraud and spent 11 months in detention before their friend Nikola Koljević managed to bail them out.[24][25] Due to a lack of evidence, Karadžić was released and his trial was brought to a halt. The trial was revived and on 26 September 1985 Karadžić was sentenced to three years in prison for embezzlement and fraud. As he had already spent over a year in detention, Karadžić did not serve the remaining sentence in prison.
On 31 July 2008, a summary of the charges were read out in court. Karadžić delayed his plea until 29 August 2008, due to the fact that an amended indictment is being prepared. Karadžić said he will enter his plea to the charges on 29 August. During his first hearing, Karadžić stated that Madeleine Albright, along with Richard Holbrooke, offered him a deal which would allow him not to be prosecuted for war crimes if he would disappear from public life and politics. According to Karadžić, Albright offered him to get out of the way and go to Russia, Greece, or Serbia and open a private clinic or to at least go to Bijeljina in northeastern Bosnia and Herzegovina.[32] He also said that Holbrooke or Albright would like to see him disappear and expressed the fear for his life by saying "I do not know how long the arm of Mr Holbrooke or Mrs Albright is...or whether that arm can reach me here".[33] Richard Holbrooke denied such claims,[34] calling them lies in a Spiegel interview shortly after Karadzic's arrest,[35] but Muhamed Sacirbey, Bosnian foreign minister at the time, said that a Karadžić-Holbrooke deal that was made in July 1996 was indeed in existence,[36] and former Bosnian Serb foreign minister Aleksa Buha claimed that he witnessed the agreement which was made during the night between 18 and 19 July 1996.[37] Claims of such a deal were also investigated by journalists before the capture and trial of Karadžić.[38]
After the allegations were broadcast internationally, the Serbian newspaper Blic claimed that Karadžić was under U.S. protection in exchange for him keeping a low profile and not participating in politics, quoting a "U.S. intelligence source" as saying that the protection ended in 2000 when the CIA intercepted a phone call of Karadžić in which it became apparent that Karadžić chaired a meeting of his old political party.[37] Greek newspaper Kathimerini reported on 6 August 2008, that according to a Serbian newspaper, a former court official wrote a book claiming that the United States and other Western states had a deal with Karadžić, protected him from arrest, and a U.S. diplomat told Karadzic that he could hide in a NATO base.