BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA: NATO troops in Pale raid the house of a suspected supporter of Radovan Karadzic

Record ID: 737794

  • Title: BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA: NATO troops in Pale raid the house of a suspected supporter of Radovan Karadzic
  • Date: 10th February 2007
  • Summary: (BN09)SARAJEVO, BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA (FILE - JUNE 1994)(REUTERS) CIVILIANS HIT BY SNIPER FIRE AS THEY RUN TO THE PROTECTION OF UNITED NATIONS ARMOURED VEHICLE
  • Embargoed: 25th February 2007 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Topics: Crime / Law Enforcement,International Relations
  • Reuters ID: LVA4OCUXMIBH94MZS05KE3ZGJG0O
  • Story Text: NATO launched a dawn raid on the house of a Bosnian Serb suspected of helping top war crimes fugitive Radovan Karadzic, the alliance's spokesman in Bosnia said on Saturday (February 10).
    U.S. troops, backed by European Union peacekeepers, sealed off parts of Karadzic's wartime stronghold of Pale, east of Sarajevo, and searched the home of his wartime commander Radomir Kojic.
    "We believe that Mr. Kojic is an active supporter of the Radovan Karadzic's support network. The purpose of today's operation is to conduct a thorough search of his home to look for information that will allow us to break up the support network. People need to realise that those who support fugitive war criminals are intimately involved in organised crime. They are a direct challenge to the rule of law in this country and they threaten the safety and security of this country and every citizen," NATO spokesman Derek Chappel told Reuters Television.
    Chappel said local police were told about the raid and provided some limited support. The United Nations war crimes tribunal's investigator was also informed.
    Men believed to be Karadzic's helpers have been detained in the past by NATO and EUFOR but there has never been any indication that Karadzic himself has narrowly eluded arrest.
    Bosnian Serb wartime leader Karadzic and his military chief Ratko Mladic have been indicted for genocide by the Hague-based war crimes court for the 1995 Srebrenica massacre of up to 8,000 Muslims and the 43-month siege of Sarajevo.
    They remain at large 10 years after being indicted. Mladic is believed to be hiding in Serbia while Karadzic's whereabouts are disputed.
    UN Chief Prosecutor Carla del Ponte, who is leaving her job in September, has urged the European Union not to build closer ties with Serbia until it hands over Mladic and Karadzic.
    Karadzic, the former Bosnian Serb President and commander-in-chief of the Bosnian Serb army, entered politics as nationalist fault lines began to presage the disintegration of old Yugoslavia. Together with his military commander, General Ratko Mladic, he quickly asserted himself as a durable war leader.
    Like many others who became prominent on both sides in the war, he was not a native Bosnian. The Karadzic family came from Montenegro. He practised as a hospital psychiatrist in pre-war Sarajevo and dabbled in the cultural life of the cosmopolitan capital, publishing three books of verse.
    Command of English made him a natural spokesman for the Bosnian Serbs in the early days when they were courted at peace talks in New York, London and Geneva. He proved to be a wily negotiator, well able to survive the pitfalls of international diplomacy.
    Karadzic was careful to obtain consent in referendums for major decisions, such as the rejection of a United Nations and European Union-backed peace plan in the summer of 1993. Armed with popular endorsement he withstood constant pressure from neighbouring and international powers to compromise.
    International condemnation never swayed Karadzic in his conviction that however much his methods outraged the West, realpolitik would dictate a settlement in favour of the Serbs. It was a message he preached to sustain his people under blockade from Serbia proper and under attack from NATO forces.
    The NATO air strikes eventually led to the signing of the Dayton Peace Accords in December 1995 which ended three-and-a-half-years of war during which some 200,000 people were killed and two million others were displaced.
    The Accords stipulated that Karadzic relinquish power but it was not until the following July that he stepped down as Serb president. He continued to exert huge influence over the Serb-controlled half of Bosnia however, persistently circumventing the accords and undermining his successor Biljana Plavsic.
    In 1995 the United Nations war crimes tribunal charged Karadzic with 20 separate war crimes including genocide and crimes against humanity. In particular he has been accused of orchestrating the 43-month siege of Sarajevo and of being responsible for the massacre of up to 8,000 Moslem men and boys in Srebrenica in July 1995.
    Assisted by a network of local supporters Karadzic has evaded several high-profile attempts by NATO forces to capture him and fellow accused Ratko Mladic. He is believed to be hiding in a remote and mountainous region of eastern Bosnia, but with his political and financial power base dwindling Radovan Karadzic may soon be joining his erstwhile patron former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic at The Hague tribunal.
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