Re: Karadžić captured...

On 23 Jūl., 02:13, ostap_bender_1...@xxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
On Jul 22, 2:04 am, u...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:



Pçteris Cedriòð (Peteris Cedrins) wrote:

Since no one else here has remarked upon it -- I'll have to raise a
glass of Sovyetskoye shampanskoye. C'mon, boys -- Tovarishch Karlamov
ought to mount a massive defense of that poor maligned poet and
condemn the kangaroo court, at least. Black Monk must needs blubber
about the terrible Kosovars. Whatever happened to the soul?

Regards,
/P

Bosnian Serb Under Arrest in War Crimes
By DAN BILEFSKY and MARLISE SIMONS
Published: July 22, 2008
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 Monday in a raid in Serbia 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 one of the architects of Europe's worst massacre
since World War II. He said Mr. 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," Mr. 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."
Mr. Karadzic's exact place of arrest was not announced, but Serbian
government officials said he was arrested by the Serbian secret police
not far from Belgrade, the capital. Officials from President Boris
Tadic's office said Mr. Karadzic had appeared before an investigative
judge at Serbia's war crimes court, a prerequisite for his extradition
to The Hague.
Mr. 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 swoopy gray hair and disguising
himself as a Serbian Orthodox priest.
He reportedly hid out in caves in the mountains of eastern Bosnia and in
monasteries. Before his political career, he was a medical doctor who
worked as a psychiatrist in Sarajevo, Bosnia's capital.
Prosecutors in The Hague and officials of the European Union have long
suspected that he was, in fact, hiding in Serbia, and in recent years
have pressed officials in Belgrade to hand him over. The failure to
arrest Mr. Karadzic and Ratko Mladic, the still fugitive Bosnian Serb
general also indicted on war crimes, has 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 allied with Mr.
Karadzic and Mr. Mladic, was arrested in 2001 and put on trial for war
crimes in 2002. He died there in 2006 before a verdict was reached.
Mr. Holbrooke said that despite Mr. Karadzic's arrest, Serbia's
responsibility was not over. "They have to capture Mladic," he said.
On Monday night after the arrest, armed police officers were deployed
near the war crimes court in Belgrade, where about 50 nationalist
supporters of Mr. Karadzic gathered, waving Serbian flags and chanting,
"Save Serbia, and kill yourself Mr. Tadic." Several protesters were
arrested after attacking journalists. Mr. Karadzic's brother, Luka, was
also seen arriving at the courthouse.
Serbian officials said the police were also dispatched to protect the
United States Embassy, which was set ablaze in February by a mob
protesting Kosovo's declaration of independence.
The arrest, more than a decade after Mr. Karadzic went into hiding,
culminated a long and protracted effort by the West to press Serbia to
arrest Mr. Karadzic for the massacres in the southeastern Bosnian town
of Srebrenica, in the most heinous crime committed during the Balkan wars.
The arrest was just weeks after a new pro-Western coalition government
in Serbia was formed whose overriding goal is to bring Serbia into the
European Union, 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 capture under the stewardship of
the new government has particular resonance because the government is
made up of an unlikely alliance between the Democrats of Mr. Tadic and
the Socialist Party of Mr. Milosevic, which fought a war against the
West in the 1990s, but has now vowed to bring Serbia back into the
Western fold.
In a sign that the move would accelerate Serbia's path to the European
Union, the bloc's official in charge of expansion, Olli Rehn, said
Monday that Mr. Karadzic's arrest was a "milestone" that would help
clear the way for the poor Balkan nation to join.
"It proves the determination of the new government to achieve full
cooperation with the tribunal," he said. He said he and European Union
foreign ministers would meet with Serbia's foreign minister, Vuk
Jeremic, in Brussels on Tuesday to discuss accelerated ties with Serbia..
The White House said the arrest was "an important demonstration of the
Serbian government's determination to honor its commitment to cooperate
with the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia." It
said, "There is no better tribute to the victims of the war's atrocities
than bringing their perpetrators to justice."
The United Nations war crimes tribunal in The Hague indicted the former
leader on July 24, 1995, just days after thousands of unarmed Bosnian
men were executed in and around Srebrenica, a United Nations-protected
enclave that was overrun by the Bosnian Serb military and the police.
Their forces were assisted closely by Serbian troops sent by Belgrade.
The prosecution charged him with genocide, persecution, deportation and
other crimes committed against non-Serb civilians in Bosnia during the
1992-95 war.
He was indicted together with his chief military commander, Mr. Mladic,
who is also believed to be in Serbia.
Natasha Kandic, director of the Humanitarian Law Center in Belgrade, a
leading human rights advocate, said by telephone from her home moments
after hearing the news: "I'm still in shock. This is historic news.
Nobody believed anymore this would be possible. I was sure Karadzic was
under the protection of the church."
Ms. Kandic said she had been in touch with friends in Sarajevo, in
Bosnia, who were still incredulous after hearing arrest rumors for so
many years. "They are saying they cannot and dare not believe it," she
said. "Finally the victims can be satisfied."
Mr. Karadzic's wife, Ljiljana, told The Associated Press by phone from
her home near Sarajevo that she had been alerted about the arrest by her
daughter Sonja, who called her before midnight. "As the phone rang, I
knew something was wrong," she said. "I'm shocked. Confused. At least
now, we know he is alive."
Even though indicted by the United Nations tribunal, he was often seen
for at least another year in and around Pale, his stronghold in Bosnia;
NATO troops stationed in the area often had the chance to arrest him but
claimed that they had no arrest orders, despite the international
warrant issued against him.
Later, when NATO began to look for him in earnest, he moved around the
mountainous regions of Bosnia and in neighboring Montenegro, where he
was born. Although the United States and others offered rewards for
information leading to his capture, Mr. Karadzic seemed protected by his
status as a Serbian hero.
He is charged with genocide for the murder of close to 8,000 Bosnian
Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica in 1995.
The indictment charges that Mr. Karadzic also committed genocide,
persecutions and other crimes when forces under his command killed
non-Serbs during and after attacks on towns throughout Bosnia and
Herzegovina, rounded up thousands of non-Serbs and transferred them to
camps set up by the Bosnian Serb authorities.
The charges state that forces under Mr. Karadzic's command killed,
tortured, mistreated and sexually assaulted non-Serbs in these camps.
Further, he is charged 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.
Nicholas Kulish contributed reporting from Berlin.

Sadly, other war criminals - like Clinton, Cooke and Albright - are
still at large. In fact, the Tribunal gave immunity to all NATO
criminals, citing conflict of interest, as most of the Tribunal's
funding comes from NATO countries.

Source?

/P
.

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