Bosnian Serb Massacre Suspect Faces Trial

Serbrenica Mastermind Radovan Karadzic Caught On Bus After 13 Years Hiding As "Alternative Medicine" Practitioner

(CBS/AP)  A judge on Tuesday finished interrogating Radovan Karadzic - the first step in a procedure aimed at handing the accused mastermind of Europe's worst massacre since World War II over to a U.N. war crimes court.

"The questioning is over," investigating Judge Milan Dilparic said about the opening round of the legal process, which included presenting the wartime Bosnian Serb leader with the indictment and allowing Karadzic three days to appeal any decision to extradite him to the U.N. tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands.

Karadzic's lawyer, Sveta Vujacic, said he will appeal the extradition.

A Serbian government official said later Tuesday that Karadzic used a false identity while on the run.

Rasim Ljajic said at a Belgrade news conference that Karadzic practiced "alternative medicine" and worked at a clinic while in hiding.

Karadzic - the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal's most-wanted fugitive - was arrested near Belgrade on Monday night after a decade on the run.

Ljajic and Serbia's war crimes prosecutor Vladimir Vukcevic showed a photo of Karadzic with glasses, and with long, white hair and a beard.

Karadzic had topped the tribunal's most-wanted list for more than a decade.

CBS News correspondent Elizabeth Palmer reports Karadzic stands accused of orchestrating the siege of Sarajevo, which killed 10,000 people, and the massacre in Srebrenica - three days during which 8,000 muslim men and boys were executed and buried in a mass grave.

Those remains have been dug up and painstakingly analysed by forensic experts to build the prosecution's case against Karadzic at the International Criminal Court, says Palmer.

Serbia has been under intense pressure from the European Union to turn over Bosnian Serb war crimes suspects, but Karadzic's arrest Monday night came as a surprise to many.

Karadzic, 63, was arrested Monday evening by Serbian security services and taken before the investigative judge of Serbia's war crimes court, indicating imminent extradition to The Hague, President Boris Tadic's office said.

A Serbian police source said Karadzic was arrested in an unidentified Belgrade suburb following a tip from a foreign intelligence service that had been monitoring his safehouse for weeks. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not allowed to speak to the media.

However, Vujacic, Karadzic's lawyer, said he was arrested on a bus at about 9:30 a.m. Friday and held until he was brought to the court Monday.

"He just said that these people showed him a police badge and then he was taken to some place and kept in the room. And that is absolutely against the law what they did," Vujacic told AP Television News. "The judge also said that he will look into this matter, who and why kept him for three days."

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."

"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."

"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."

Karadzic's whereabouts had been a mystery to U.N. prosecutors. His reported hide-outs included monasteries and mountain caves in remote eastern Bosnia. Prosecutors suspect the elaborated disguised fugitive eluded a decade-long manhunt with the help of Bosnian Serb nationalists.

However, the nationalists lost power when a new pro-Western government took over last month. The new government removed the nationalist official who was chief of the secret police.

"It is clear that those changes led to Karadzic's arrest," prominent Serbian human rights activist Natasa Kandic said.

His wife, Ljiljana, told The Associated Press by telephone from her home in Pale that her daughter called her Monday night with the news.

"I'm shocked. Confused. At least now, we know he is alive," Ljiljana Karadzic said, declining further comment.

Armed special forces were deployed around the war crimes court in Belgrade late to ward against a backlash by nationalists who consider Karadzic, seen at left in a 1985 photo, a war hero.

"He did not surrender; that is not his style," his brother, Luka Karadzic, said outside the court.

But in Belgrade, Karadzic supporters chanted: "Karadzic: Hero!" and "Tadic: Traitor!" Several were arrested after attacking reporters.

Other officers took up positions throughout central Belgrade and in front of the U.S. Embassy, which was targeted in nationalist rioting over Kosovo's declaration of independence in February.

In the Bosnian capital, Sarajevo, which was besieged throughout the war by Bosnian Serb nationalists, streets were jammed late Monday as Bosnian Muslims celebrated the arrest.

During the siege of Sarajevo, the Serbs starved, sniped and bombarded the city center, operating from strongholds in Pale and Vraca high above the city and controlling nearly all roads in and out.

Inhabitants were kept alive only by a thin lifeline of food aid and supplies provided by U.N. donors and peacekeepers, risking their lives merely by walking down the street to shop for groceries or by driving down a main road that 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 died in and around the city.

The international tribunal indicted Karadzic on genocide charges in 1995. The psychiatrist and self-styled poet-turned-hardline Serbian nationalist still wielded power among Bosnian Serbs from the shadows and occasionally appeared in public before going on the run in 1998.

Richard Holbrooke, the U.S. diplomat who brokered the Dayton deal, said Karadzic was responsible for the deaths of 300,000 people and his arrest marked "a historic day."

"A man who has been on the run for 12 years, who NATO should have captured, has been captured - and by the Serb government themselves," Holbrooke told CNN television. "This guy was a kind of a Robin Hood to the Bosnian Serbs, evading capture for 12 years, fomenting dissent. His removal from the scene will help enormously to create stability."

In 1995, Serb troops led by wartime military commander Gen. Ratko Mladic overran Serbrenica, a U.N. enclave sheltering Bosnian Muslims. Mladic's troops rounded up the entire population and took the men away for execution. He remains at large.

At war's end in late 1995, an estimated 250,000 people were dead and another 1.8 million driven from their homes.

"There is no better tribute to the victims of the war's atrocities than bringing their perpetrators to justice," the Bush administration said in Washington.

Under the U.N. indictment, last amended in May 2000, the U.N. war crimes tribunal 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.

Munira Subasic, who lost two sons in the Srebrenica massacre, was overcome with emotion as she watched the news on television.

"After 13 years, we finally reached the moment of truth," she told AP Television News.

[tbweb]

One mans hero is another mans terrorist! Radovan Karadzic selected the barbaric path against his enemy and the World didn''''''''t like it, Christians should reject him too. Slaughtering unarmed civilians, women and children is beyond wicked.

-------------------------
----------------------------------------
---------------

Posted by tbweb at 07:32 AM : Jul 22, 2008

You praise a man who had thousands killed, including children? What next, do you want to give a medal to Osama Bin Ladin?

----------------------------------
----------------------------------------
------

Posted by nolalou at 10:45 AM : Jul 22, 2008,,,

Even those with weak reading and comprehension skills would not interpret my Post as praising Radovan Karadzic, go back to school!

[navyjimfl]

Hiding in a disguise......finally caught.....this hitler want-to-be can never get the justice he deserves.....the terror and pain and death he has caused requires that he at least spend the rest of his miserable life in prison.

[nssherlock1]

SHOW US YOUR BIRTH CERTIFICATE HUSSEIN,,,
Posted by terrorislamo


Great news terrorislamo. He has had his birth certificate tattooed on his P e n i s. You are invited to make a careful, up close, in-depth examination and report back to your crazy friends on your findings.

[trishab4]

birth certificate%u201D claimed by the Barack Obama campaign as authentic is a photoshopped fake.
The image, purporting to come from the Hawaii Department of Health, has been the subject of intense skepticism in the blogosphere in the past two weeks. But now the senior spokesman of that Department has confirmed to Israel Insider what are the required features of a certified birth document %u2014 features that Obama%u2019s purported %u201Cbirth certificate%u201D clearly lack.
http://conservablogs.com/velvetha
mmer/2008/06/25/obamas-fight-the-smears-
daily-kos-are-passing-off-a-fraudulent-d
ocument-as-his-certificate-of-live-birth
/
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posted by terrorislamo at 01:22 PM : Jul 22, 2008

-How is that related to Karadzic, tartarsalami?

[terrorislamo]

SHOW US YOUR BIRTH CERTIFICATE HUSSEIN,,,

Is Obama%u2019s %u201CFight The Smears%u201D Passing Off A Fraudulent Document As His %u201CCertificate of Live Birth%u201D?
Barack Obama%u2019s Achilles heel?
This may be the most damning evidence to date. Obama may be over the barrel now, once and for all.
Janice Okubo, Director of Communications of the State of Hawaii Department of Health confirms all earlier suspicions of a forgery.
The million dollar question remains. What is Obama hiding?
Faked certificate suggests that Obama may not be %u201Cnatural born%u201D US citizen
It is now a certainty that the %u201Cbirth certificate%u201D claimed by the Barack Obama campaign as authentic is a photoshopped fake.
The image, purporting to come from the Hawaii Department of Health, has been the subject of intense skepticism in the blogosphere in the past two weeks. But now the senior spokesman of that Department has confirmed to Israel Insider what are the required features of a certified birth document %u2014 features that Obama%u2019s purported %u201Cbirth certificate%u201D clearly lack.
http://conservablogs.com/velvethammer/2008/06/25/obamas-fight-the-smears-daily-kos-are-passing-off-a-fraudulent-document-as-his-certificate-of-live-birth/

[excoachken]

So, when do Bush and Cheyney go on trial?

[terrorislamo]

ummmmm

when will they start the trials for the fascist naqi terrorislamists for their crimes???

[newsjunky5]

Yugoslavia, RIP. Good rifles, crappy cars.

[newsjunky5]

Because of this man, the Yugo factory went up in flames. But the other things he did were very bad.

[newsjunky5]

Glad they caught him, now he should get the punishment he deserves. Let''s try to prevent such acts from happening BEFORE they happen next time. No matter who''s doing/getting the massacre

[kennedy7955]

Long live Radovan Karadzic... he stood up for Serbian Christians... The Bonsian Moslims wanted all of Bosnia, Karadzic and like minded Bosnian Serbs rebelled...
Posted by borris007

How did his, "standing up" work out for the country? He was one of the architects of the destruction of Yugoslavia. His actions resulted in civil war and the departure of all the states of the Federation. A real Serb looking at this man and his history would realize that he did not, "Stand up" for the country but destroyed it and a great many people including Serbs.

Serbs can thank the UN in earnest because if not for a UN mandate and pressure, the Croats would have rolled across Serbia.

[brianbwb-2009]

"You praise a man who had thousands killed, including children? What next, do you want to give a medal to Osama Bin Ladin?" Posted by nolalou

It is apparent that there is a similar delusional architecture in the prasi of Karadzic, as there is in those who still praise Bush, seeing as how Bush''s numbers are much higher, Karadzic is a boy scout in comparison.

"A September 14, 2007 estimate by ORB (Opinion Research Business), an independent British polling agency, suggests that the total Iraqi violent death toll due to the Iraq War since the US-led invasion is in excess of 1.2 million (1,220,580). Although higher than the 2006 Lancet estimate through June 2006, these results, which were based on a survey of 1499 adults in Iraq from August 12-19, 2007, are more or less consistent with the figures that were published in the Lancet study.

On 28 January 2008, ORB published an update based on additional work carried out in rural areas of Iraq. Some 600 additional interviews were undertaken and as a result of this the death estimate was revised to 1,033,000 with a given range of 946,000 to 1,120,000."

[brianbwb-2009]

Posted by libo_nazi

I put up the numbers and the similarities, and what do you have?

If you can, then you prove your point, if you cannot, then you are the moron.

PTFU, or **** son.

[neoconrcrazy]

"Nobody is beyond the reach of the law"


were that only true in America....where the big criminals hide behind our Flag!

[nssherlock1]

This guy is a light-weight compared to Bush and Cheney. I hope they can hang together.

[vnveteran72]

News From the Future:

Dateline, April, 2009

In the early hours today, simulteneous, perfectly orchestrated raids were launched by U.S. Special Forces on Fortified Compounds in Paraguay and Dubai, and the Worlds two most notorious War Criminals, George W. Bush and Richard Cheney were taken into custody following fierce resistence from Blackwater Security and other Private Mercenary Forces hired by the two Mass Murderers.
The raids completed the latest part of what has been a month of non-stop raids and arrests of key figures cited in the United Nations Iraq War Crimes Investigations of the once untouchable Bush/Cheney Crime Cartel.

I love the Future......
Just last week you''ll recall, U.S. Special Agents arrested former Secretary Condi Rice as she attempted to board a charter flight from Bogata, Columbia, bound for Bush''s Ranch in Paraguay, lightly disguised as a man, wearing a wig and beard.

[nolalou]

Long live Radovan Karadzic... he stood up for Serbian Christians... The Bonsian Moslims wanted all of Bosnia, Karadzic and like minded Bosnian Serbs rebelled...
Posted by borris007

You praise a man who had thousands killed, including children? What next, do you want to give a medal to Osama Bin Ladin?

[shazam111]

He was just killing Muslims! Is that a crime?


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Posted by GOP_forever at 08:55 AM : Jul 22, 2008
+ report abuse

is that a crime to kill jews and hagee goons.

[shazam111]

hang em high...worse of the worse kind...

[zzzzzzzizi]

This should send a message to the sudanese president