TIRANA, July 24 – Ex-Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic was captured in Belgrade on Monday and is awaiting extradition to the U.N. war crimes tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands.
Albanian Prime Minister Sali Berisha called Radovan Karadzic “a barbarous figure” responsible for genocide and referred to his arrest as “another delayed but deserved hit on Serb ultra nationalism.”
“We wish Belgrade authorities pay the same fate to the barbarous general, Radko Mladic, and other war criminals who are still hiding in Serbia,” according to a statement.
Karadzic faces genocide charges.
Karadzic grew a long, white beard to conceal his identity and even managed to openly practice alternative medicine while in hiding. 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 World War II, had topped the tribunal’s most-wanted list for years.
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, a government official said.
Karadzic, disguised with a bushy beard and glasses and using a false name, Dragan Dabic, had managed to move freely while living in a new part of Belgrade and working at a private clinic.
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.”
Bruno Vekaric, spokesman for Serbia’s war crimes prosecutor, said those people who helped Karadzic assume the false identity that enabled him to elude capture on U.N. genocide charges for more than a decade will be found and prosecuted.
Karadzic’s lawyer Sveta Vujacic insisted his client was captured last Friday on a public bus in a Belgrade suburb, then was hooded and transferred to an unknown location where he was kept for three days.
Vekaric said Karadzic obtained the false papers while former Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic’s regime was still in power until its ouster in a popular revolt in October 2000.
With U.N. officials predicting Karadzic would be handed to the tribunal in the next few days, his attorney said the prisoner would handle his own defense, just like his former mentor Milosevic, who died in 2006 while on trial in The Hague.
Karadzic will do it looking like his old self, without the bushy white beard and long gray hair that hid his face when he was arrested by Serbian authorities. Karadzic asked for and got a shave and a haircut Wednesday.
Serbia wants to renew
ties with EU nations that
recognized Kosova
Serbia’s foreign minister Vuk Jeremic wants his country to become an official EU membership candidate this year and is ready to resume full diplomatic ties with EU nations that recognized Kosova’s independence, according to an interview published Wednesday in Le Monde.
His arrest “showed that there is not the slightest shadow over the will of our government to cooperate with the (tribunal), one of the conditions of our entry in the EU,” Jeremic was quoted as saying.
He said he would propose to the Serbian Cabinet “to authorize the return of our diplomats to EU countries that recognized” Kosova’s independence declaration.
The United States and several EU countries, including France, recognized Kosova as an independent state in February. Serbia considers Kosova part of its territory and recalled diplomats to several countries in response.
Jeremic insisted that resuming diplomatic ties did not mean Serbia was “surrendering” to international pressure over Kosova.
Reaction
“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 and that sooner or later all fugitives will be brought to justice.” _ Serge Brammertz, head prosecutor for the U.N. war crimes tribunal in The Hague
“His false identity was very convincing. Even his landlords were unaware of his identity.” _ Serbian war crimes prosecutor Vladimir Vukcevic on Karadzic’s disguise
“Good news! We have waited for this for 13 years. Finally. Finally. This is a very good thing for the rapprochement of Serbia with the European Union.” French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, whose country holds the rotating EU presidency
“The victims need to know: Massive human rights violations do not go unpunished.” German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin “As the phone rang, I knew something was wrong. I’m shocked. Confused. At least now, we know he is alive.” _ Ljiljana Karadzic, Karadzic’s wife
“After 13 years, we finally reached the moment of truth. … I think this brings some settlement in our hearts and brings us forward to the future.” _ Munira Subasic, a mother who lost two sons in the Srebrenica massacre of 1995
“He was at large because the Yugoslav army was protecting him. But this guy in my view was worse than Milosevic … he was the intellectual leader.” _ Richard Holbrooke, former U.S. ambassador who negotiated an end to the 1992-1995 Bosnian War, told CNN television, referring to former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic
“We have been waiting for 13 years and we lost hope. Now we know _ there is justice.” _ Kada Hotic, a survivor of Srebrenica massacre. “This news gives us immense satisfaction. The new government in Belgrade stands for a new Serbia, for a new quality of relations with the EU.” _ EU foreign affairs chief Javier Solana
“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, Karadzic’s lawyer in Serbia
“We congratulate the government of Serbia, and thank the people who conducted this operation for their professionalism and courage.” _ White House statement from Washington
“The four years that I was working with NATO to try and catch him were peppered by rumors of where he was _ in this cafe, on that mountain, in this valley _ so it’s been a long hoped-for day.” _ Lord Paddy Ashdown, former top international administrator in Bosnia, tells British Broadcasting Corp. radio.
