Top war crimes suspect arrested in Serbia

Karadzic accused of leading killings

Bosnians celebrated in Sarajevo earlier today the arrest of Radovan Karadzic, who is accused of leading the Srebrenica killings. (Hidajet Delic/Associated Press)

PARIS - Radovan Karadzic, one of the world's most-wanted war criminals for his part in the massacre of nearly 8,000 Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica in 1995, was arrested yesterday in a Serbian police raid that ended a 13-year hunt.

Serge Brammertz, the prosecutor of the United Nations war crimes tribunal in The Hague, hailed the arrest as an important step in bringing to justice the architect of Europe's worst massacre since World War II. He said Karadzic, 63, the Bosnian Serb president during the war there between 1992 and 1995, would be transferred to The Hague in "due course."

"This is a very important day for the victims who have waited for this arrest for over a decade," Brammertz said. "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."

Karadzic's place of arrest was not announced, but Serbian government officials said Karadzic had been arrested by the Serbian secret police not far from Belgrade, Serbia's capital. Officials from President Boris Tadic's office said Karadzic had appeared before an investigative judge at Serbia's war crimes court, a prerequisite for his extradition to The Hague.

Karadzic, a nationalist hero among Serbian radicals and one of the tribunal's most-wanted criminals for more than a decade, is said to have eluded arrest so long by shaving his signature mane of wild gray hair and disguising himself in a brown cassock.

His reported hide-outs included refurbished caves in the mountains of eastern Bosnia and Serbian orthodox monasteries. Stories circulated across Serbia that he had disguised himself as a priest. Before his political career, he was a medical doctor who worked as a psychiatrist in Sarajevo.

Hague and EU officials have long suspected that he was hiding in Serbia, and have pressed Belgrade to hand him over. The failure to arrest Karadzic and Ratko Mladic, the still-fugitive Bosnian Serb general also indicted on war crimes, long stood as a block to greater Serbian ties to the European Union after the wars in Bosnia and later Kosovo.

"This is a historic event," said Richard Holbrooke, who brokered the agreements in Dayton, Ohio, to end the war in Bosnia in 1995. "Of the three most evil men of the Balkans - Milosevic, Karadzic, and Mladic - I thought Karadzic was the worst. The reason was that Karadzic was a real racist believer. Karadzic really enjoyed ordering the killing of Muslims, whereas Milosevic was an opportunist."

Slobodan Milosevic, the former president of Serbia and supporter of Karadzic and Mladic, was arrested in 2001 and put on trial for war crimes in 2002. He died in 2006 before a verdict.

Holbrooke said that despite Karadzic's arrest, Serbia's responsibility is not over. "They have to capture Mladic," he said.

Last night after the arrest, armed police officers were deployed near the war crimes court in Belgrade, where about 50 nationalist supporters of Karadzic gathered, waving Serbian flags and chanting, "Save Serbia, and kill yourself Mr. Tadic." Several protesters were arrested after attacking journalists. Karadzic's brother, Luka, was also seen arriving at the courthouse.

Serbian officials said police were also dispatched to protect the US Embassy, which was set ablaze in February by an angry mob protesting Kosovo's declaration of independence.

The arrest, more than a decade after Karadzic went into hiding, marks the culmination of a long and protracted effort by the West to press Serbia to arrest Karadzic for the massacres at the southeastern Bosnian town of Srebrenica, what is widely considered the most heinous crime committed during the Balkan wars.

It came just weeks after a new pro-Western coalition government in Serbia was formed whose overriding goal is to bring Serbia into the EU, the world's biggest trading bloc. The European Union has made delivering indicted war criminals to The Hague a precondition for Serbia's membership. The arrest was hailed by Western diplomats as proof of Serbia's determination to link its future to the West and put the virulent nationalism of the past behind it.

The UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague indicted the former leader July 24, 1995, just days after the killing of nearly 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica, a UN-protected enclave which was overrun by Bosnian Serb military and police. Karadzic's forces were assisted by Serbian troops sent by Belgrade.

Karadzic is also charged by the UN war crimes tribunal with responsibility for the shelling and sniping of civilians in Sarajevo, during the 43-month siege of the city, which led to the killing and wounding of thousands, including many women and children.