Violence feared as right-wing Serbs rally for Karadzic

Supporters of former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic gathered yesterday in Belgrade to protest his extradition. (Darko Vojinovic/Associated Press)

BELGRADE - Right-wing Serbs called an antigovernment rally for tonight to protest the extradition of Radovan Karadzic, as authorities raced to whisk the former Bosnian Serb leader to a United Nations war crimes tribunal amid fears the demonstration could be violent.

The rally organizer, the Serbian Radical Party, was busing Karadzic's supporters to the capital yesterday from all over Serbia and from Bosnia, where Karadzic is revered by many as a hero who helped create a Bosnian Serb ministate after that country's 1992-95 war.

"The protest is against the treacherous and dictatorial regime" of Serbia's pro-Western President Boris Tadic for arresting Karadzic, Radical Party leader Aleksandar Vucic said.

When Serb nationalists held a rally against Western countries after Kosovo's February declaration of independence, protesters partly burned the US Embassy in Belgrade and went on a looting spree, smashing shops and McDonald's restaurants in the Serbian capital.

Belgrade was rife with speculation that ultranationalists would use force to try to prevent Karadzic from being sent to The Hague, Netherlands, to stand trial on genocide charges at the UN court for war crimes committed during the breakup of Yugoslavia in the 1990s.

Ivana Ramic, spokeswoman for the Belgrade court handling Karadzic's case, told the Associated Press that his appeal against extradition had not arrived by the court's close yesterday.

If the appeal doesn't arrive within a "reasonable time frame," the court's investigative judge is to rule on Karadzic's extradition, Ramic said. She did not elaborate, but it was widely thought that Serbian authorities wanted to act before today's demonstration.

Karadzic's lawyer, Svetozar Vujacic, said he mailed the appeal late Friday in hopes of delaying extradition.

"Karadzic is a Bosnian Serb citizen, so it would be logical that the appeal was mailed from Bosnia," Vujacic said. "I wouldn't rule out that my appeal grows a beard and mustache before it gets here."

Vujacic said he wanted to prevent his client's extradition before the ultranationalist rally.

"They are using all illegal means to try send him to The Hague before the rally," the attorney said. "Karadzic and I want to make sure it does not happen."

"But," he added, "we are unfortunately aware the extradition will take place" before the rally.