NETHERLANDS: Hague prison wating for Karadzic as International tribunal hails arrest
Record ID:
725993
NETHERLANDS: Hague prison wating for Karadzic as International tribunal hails arrest
- Title: NETHERLANDS: Hague prison wating for Karadzic as International tribunal hails arrest
- Date: 22nd July 2008
- Summary: (BN06) THE HAGUE, THE NETHERLANDS (FILE) (UNTV) VARIOUS OF INSIDE DETENTION CENTRE NUMBER OF CELL WHERE MILOSEVIC WAS HELD PAN ALONG DOORS BED, CHAIR, TOILET INSIDE CELL YARD
- Embargoed: 6th August 2008 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: Netherlands
- Country: Netherlands
- Reuters ID: LVAAP4NW3KGU8U2NU1NJOU608A2V
- Story Text: The International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia welcomes the arrest of former Bosnian Serb president Radovan Karadzic who is expected to be taken to Scheveningen prison in the Hague.
The United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia ICTY Tribunal in the Hague, the ICTY, said Radovan Karadzic was one of the most wanted war criminals on their list and welcomed his arrest as great news.
Nerma Jelacic, ICTY spokeswoman said on Tuesday (July 22) the court does not want his arrival at the Hague detention centre delayed.
"Karadzic, obviously, has been one of the most wanted fugitives from the international justice for the last 13 years and as you can tell that is huge, huge news for us so we are very much looking forward to receiving him in our detention unit. We hope his transfer will be quick and swift and we will be ready to start his trial as soon as possible," Jelacic said.
Bosnian Serb wartime president Radovan Karadzic, wanted for planning and ordering Europe's worst atrocities since World War Two, has been arrested after 11 years on the run.
Serbian government sources said Karadzic was arrested on Monday but had been under surveillance in Serbia for several weeks, after a tip-off from a foreign intelligence service.
He did not resist arrest. His lawyer, Svetozar Vujacic, told reporters Karadzic was arrested on Friday night, while taking a bus between two suburbs of Belgrade, and had been held for three days before the announcement.
"He is charged with genocide, complicity to commit genocide, murder, extermination, cruel treatment, torture etc. It's a huge array of crimes committed in Bosnia Herzegovina solely between March and December 1992 when Bosnian Serb republic was declared and Rado van Karadzic was president but also for the crimes that were committed from 1992 until November 1995 including the genocide in Srebrenica," Jelacic said.
Karadzic's arrest was one of the main conditions of Serbian progress towards European Union (EU) membership, which most of its people desire.
One-third say they oppose joining until the bloc stops supporting the secession of the province of Kosovo.
Richard Holbrooke, former U.S. Balkan troubleshooter during the wars of the 1990s' described Karadzic as the Osama bin Laden of Europe, "a real, true architect of mass murder".
Karadzic went underground more than a year after Holbrooke negotiated the 1995 Dayton accords that ended the war in Bosnia and NATO deployed a huge force of peacekeepers in early 1996.
His arrest leaves two war crimes suspects still wanted by the Hague tribunal. But it should be enough to secure Serbia closer ties with the European Union (EU) and possibly the status of EU membership candidate state this year.
Karadzic was indicted along with his army commander, General Ratko Mladic, for genocide at Srebrenica, where some 8,000 unarmed Bosnian Muslim males were rounded up and murdered and bulldozed into mass graves in July 1995.
"As you know we have two more and we want them all. Ratko Mladic and Goran Hadzic are still on the wanted list and the tribunal expects them also to be arrested," Jelacic said.
The arrest came on the eve of a meeting of EU foreign ministers scheduled to discuss closer relations with Belgrade following the formation of a new pro-Western government.
EU members who insist Serbia must hand over all war crimes suspects are likely to see it as proof that Karadzic's fellow genocide suspect, the fugitive wartime commander Mladic can also be seized if Belgrade has the political will to face down hardline nationalists.
The new government is an odd-couple alliance of President Tadic's pro-Western Democratic Party and the Socialists of the late Slobodan Milosevic, who died in detention at the Hague war crimes prison.
An ordinary dutch prison? Not quite. Perched on the edge of this blustery Dutch resort, Scheveningen jail is the home of several figures convicted of or suspected of committing some of the worst atrocities in postwar European history.
If, as is expected Bosnian Serb president Radovan Karadzic is extradited from Serbia to the Netherlands, it is in this prison that he will be held pending his trial and immediately after any sentencing.
After being formally taken into custody by the Dutch authorities, Karadzic will then be handed over to the U.N. detention unit at the prison prior to his initial appearance at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia a day or so later.
The prison's most infamous inmate to date was Serbian former strongman Slobodan Milosevic, who died behind its bars in 2007, his trial still under way.
Karadzic's trial will take place a couple of kilometres away in the Hague at the ICTY.
Details of the arrest and the timetable of his likely extradition were expected at a news conference at 11 a.m. (0900 GMT). - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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