Serbian officials arrested Bosnian Serb wartime leader Radovan Karadzic, one of the world’s most wanted men, 13 years after his UN indictment for genocide and other crimes. Karadzic, 63, was arrested Monday night and brought before a war crimes judge in Belgrade, President Boris Tadic’s office said in a brief statement. The UN war crimes tribunal for the former Yugoslavia indicted Karadzic in 1995 on charges of genocide, crimes against humanity and breach of the Geneva Convention for his alleged role in leading the brutal ethnic cleansing of non-Serbs during Bosnia’s 1992-95 ethnic war. He is accused of ordering the 1995 massacre at Srebrenica, where Bosnian Serbs killed thousands of Bosnian Muslim men and boys. In Sarajevo, the Bosnian capital where the civil war broke out after its Muslim-led government declared independence from then-Yugoslavia, dozens of residents gathered downtown to welcome Karadzic’s capture.
Word of his arrest came just weeks after the swearing in of Serbia’s new pro-European government, which has set ambitious goals for the long-isolated nation to join the European Union–a target that requires full cooperation with the UN tribunal in The Hague.
Bringing Karadzic to justice has been a key condition for EU membership.
Serb War Crimes Suspect Karadzic Arrested in Serbia
Serbian officials arrested Bosnian Serb wartime leader Radovan Karadzic, one of the world’s most wanted men, 13 years after his UN indictment for genocide and other crimes. Karadzic, 63, was arrested Monday night and brought before a war crimes judge in Belgrade, President Boris Tadic’s office said in a brief statement.
