Karadzic Lived in Serbia with 'False Identity'
22 July 2008 Top war crimes fugitives Radovan Karadzic, who was arrested late on Monday, had been hiding in Belgrade under a false indentity, top Serbian officials said Tuesday.
Serbian War Crimes Prosecutor Vladimir Vukcevic said that security
forces arrested former Bosnian Serb leader in a carefully planned
operation, and under minimal security risk for police and the fugitive.
"Karadzic
was hiding in New Belgrade under a false identity...He was using name
of Dragan Dabic," Vukcevic said, adding that the world's most wanted
war crimes fugitive "practiced alternative medicine in a private office
in Belgrade."
The operation which eventually led to Karadzic's arrest started in the afternoon.
"Karadzic
was moving freely in Belgrade. His false identity was so convincing
that no one was able to identify him, including his landlord and
employer," Vukcevic said.
Karadzic was arrested in a operation
which initially targeted a group of aides to former Bosnian Serbs
military chief Ratko Mladic but Serbian security forces seemed
surprised when they stumbled across the other top fugitive.
Karadzic
was arrested "in an action by the Serbian security services,”
pro-European President Boris Tadic's cabinet said in a statement late
on Monday.
However, Karadzic’s attorney, Sveta Vujacic, said
her client had been arrested on Friday when he was on board a bus. "He
just said that these people showed him a police badge and than he was
taken to some place and kept in a room. And that is absolutely against
the law what they did."
The charges against Karadzic, 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 and
Herzegovina during the 1992-1995 war.
The Hague's top war crimes
prosecutor Serge Brammertz congratulated Serbia on "achieving this
milestone in cooperation with the International Criminal Tribunal for
the former Yugoslavia."
"Yesterday's operation showed that we do
not pick a time nor the place to arrest war crimes fugitives," head of
Serbia's Council for Cooperation with The Hague Tribunal Rasim Ljajic
told reporters.
"Everybody expected Mladic to be arrested and very few people expected this to happened to Karadzic."
Read more on Karadzic's arrest here: http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/main/news/11955/
Justice Report is a
specialist reporting agency focusing on war crimes trials taking place before
local courts; development of the local legal system; and efforts to come to
terms with the past.
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Balkan Investigative Reporting Network
The opinions expressed in Balkan Insight are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network
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