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Bosnian Serb PM ‘to Help’ Karadzic Family

Sonja Karadzic

23 July 2008  Sonja Karadzic Jovicevic, Radovan Karadzic’s daughter, tells BIRN - Justice Report she is grateful for the help the Premier of Bosnia’s Serb-dominated entity is offering her and her family.

“I am grateful to him for understanding. I hope he will be able to help us to organise our lives and to resolve problems we have. I hope we will soon be in contact with Milorad Dodik,” Sonja Karadzic Jovicevic told Balkan Insight.


Speaking to local media, the Prime Minister of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Serb-dominated entity of Republika Srpska, Dodik said that the Karadzic family has the right to financial help that were given to the families of people who are taken to The Hague.


Sonja also said she is hoping the whole family will be able to go to Belgrade and visit Radovan, before he is transferred to The Hague and that they will send a request to the Office of the High Representative, the international envoy overseeing peace in Bosnia, to permit them to leave the country.


“We can not afford to travel to The Hague, and we hope that we will be able to go to Belgrade to see him,” said Sonja.


The Karadzic family assets have been frozen and their identification documents seized following a decision by Office of the High Representative in Bosnia, and warrants issued by the state court. Last November, the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina temporarily prohibited Karadzic family members from disposing of their property.


The Court decision referred to the house owned by Karadzic’s wife Ljiljana Zelen Karadzic in Krivace village, the apartment owned by his daughter Sonja and her husband Branislav Jovicevic, as well as their business premises under construction, and an apartment belonging to Karadzic's son Sasa. All the buildings and apartments are situated in the Pale municipality, outside Sarajevo.


This January their documents were taken away after the High Representative issued the order at the request of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia at The Hague.


Speaking to Balkan insight, Sonja Karadzic said she believes Dodik would have helped the family earlier but it was not possible since the law forbids this since they are considered “Karadzic helpers.”


Sonja did not want to give any comments regarding her father’s arrest nor about his new identity. She said her mother Ljiljana is ill and this is one of the reasons why she will ask for permission to go and visit him.


Radovan Karadzic’s wife, daughter and son Sasa are living in Pale with their families. For a while during a war Sonja used to be in charge of Karadzic’s relations with international media. After the war she used to own the radio station St Jovan but this was shut down by the international community.


Son Sasa has a family with two kids, he does not officially work while his wife recently opened a kindergarten in Pale.


War crimes fugitive Radovan Karadzic, who was arrested late on Monday, had been hiding in Belgrade under a false identity as a doctor. Read more: http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/main/news/11986/


Karadzic had been on the run since 1995, evading a UN war-crimes trial where he was expected to answer charges over the killing of up to 8,000 Bosniak men and boys in the eastern Bosnian enclave of Srebrenica in 1995, the siege of Sarajevo, the killing of civilians, the destruction of property and other war crimes committed during the three-year war.