BOSNIA/YUGOSLAVIA: BOSNIAN SERB FARMER WITH UNCANNY RESEMBLANCE TO WAR CRIMES SUSPECT RADOVAN KARADZIC SAYS HE HAS NO INTENTION OF CHANGING

Record ID: 648432

  • Title: BOSNIA/YUGOSLAVIA: BOSNIAN SERB FARMER WITH UNCANNY RESEMBLANCE TO WAR CRIMES SUSPECT RADOVAN KARADZIC SAYS HE HAS NO INTENTION OF CHANGING
  • Date: 1st March 2002
  • Summary: (U5) BELGRADE, YUGOSLAVIA (RECENT) (REUTERS - ACCESS ALL) 1. SV: PEOPLE SELLING SERBIAN FLAGS AT THE BELGRADE FLEA MARKET 0.06 2. CLOSE UP OF T-SHIRT WITH THE PICTURE OF WAR CRIMES SUSPECT RADOVAN KARADZIC AND "SERBIAN HERO" WRITTEN BELOW 0.11 3. SV: A YOUNG WOMAN PASSING BY THE STAND, LOOKING AT RADOVAN KARADZIC'S PHOTOGRAPH/ CU OF PHOTO (2 SHOTS) 0.23 4. CLOSE UP ON AN OLD SERBIAN MILITARY CAP WITH THE PICTURE OF RADOVAN KARADZIC IN THE BACKGROUND 0.29 5. WIDE OF THE BELGRADE FLEA MARKET 0.34 6. SV: PEOPLE SITTING IN THE FLEA MARKET LISTENING TO LIVE RADIO BROADCAST OF DEVELOPING SFOR HUNT FOR KARADZIC 0.39 7. CLOSE UP OF CLOCK/RADIO 0.46 8. CU: POSTER SHOWING PHOTOGRAPH OF RADOVAN KARADZIC AND CHE GUEVARA 0.50 (U5)MAJEVICA AREA, BOSNIA (RECENT) (REUTERS - ACCESS ALL) (QUALITY AS INCOMING) 9. SCU: SOUNDBITE (Serbian) CVJETIN GAVRIC, KARADZIC'S LOOKALIKE, SPEAKING SAYING: If I was just 15 centimetres taller, I'd have been in The Hague, for sure. Now nobody knows what will happen. I have been stopped five or six times, and excluded from traffic. Once they stopped me around Brcko on my way to Banja Luka, once around Obudovac, once around Bjeljina when I was going towards Separe, once they stopped me on my way to a spa.... It depends on whether the main man is there (at the checkpoint) or not. If he is, it takes five or six minutes, if he is not I wait until he arrives. Why would I mind looking similar? A lot of people look similar. Now everybody knows that I am not him. It used to be more difficult, now when people see me they usually just nod." (2 SHOTS) 1.52 (U5) PALE, BOSNIAN SERB REPUBLIC (FILE 1994) (REUTERS - ACCESS ALL) 10. VARIOUS OF RADOVAN KARADZIC, THE THEN PRESIDENT OF BOSNIAN SERB REPUBLIC (5 SHOTS) 2.33 Initials Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved
  • Embargoed: 16th March 2002 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: MAJEVICA AREA, AND PALE, BOSNIA/BELGRADE, YUGOSLAVIA
  • City:
  • Country: Yugoslavia
  • Reuters ID: LVA73JWOZURX3Q39S2YFWU3I3GLR
  • Story Text: An uncanny resemblance to Radovan Karadzic has made
    life difficult for a Bosnian Serb farmer. But he has no plans
    to cut the mane of bushy grey hair which makes him look so
    like the fugitive war crimes suspect.


    Only his height stops Cvjetan Gavric from being a
    dead ringer for the former Bosnian Serb leader sought by the
    U.N. war crimes tribunal based in The Netherlands.

    "If I was just 15 centimetres taller, I'd have been in
    The Hague already," Gavric joked in a recent interview.

    The Hague tribunal has indicted Karadzic and his
    military chief Ratko Mladic for genocide both for the 1995
    mass killing of up to 8,000 Muslim men and boys at Srebrenica
    and for the three-and-a-half-year siege of the Bosnian capital
    Sarajevo.

    NATO's SFOR peacekeeping force in Bosnia has stepped up
    the hunt for Karadzic. It made two high-profile but failed
    attempts to grab him in eastern Bosnia last week.

    Meanwhile, interest in Karadzic's future has increased
    in the capital of Yugoslavia.

    People can be seen listening to the radio broadcast of
    the attempt to arrest former Bosnian Serb leader.

    Photographs and T-shirts with Karadzic's picture are
    being sold in Belgrade.

    Karadzic's lookalike said he too had come close to an
    arrest.

    "Five or six times, SFOR stopped my car and I had to wait
    for a high-ranking officer every time," Gavric said.

    Gavric said he had also been spotted by police in
    Bosnia's Muslim-Croat federation: "A policeman checked my
    papers and started laughing, the Serb said. I laughed too."
    The farmers resemblance to the former leader is so
    strong that he is nicknamed Karadzic by friends. But despite
    the dangers of being confused with a wanted war crimes
    suspect, Gavric says he will not change his distinctive
    hairstyle.

    "I'm used to it, he said. I've had it like this since I
    can remember," he said.




  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
  • Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2015. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
  • Usage Terms/Restrictions: None
Register