Serbia nabs Srebrenica genocide ‘mastermind’

BELGRADE: Serbia said its security forces had on Monday captured Radovan Karadzic, the mastermind of the genocidal Srebrenica massacre who had been on the run for nearly 13 years.

Karadzic, 63—described as the “Osama Bin Laden of Europe”—had been “located and arrested tonight,” said a statement from the office of Serbian President Boris Tadic.

“Karadzic was brought to the investigative judge of the War Crimes Court in Belgrade, in accordance with the law on cooperation with the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY),” it added.

The presidency and prosecutors refrained from disclosing any more details about the operation, but a war crimes official who requested anonymity said Karadzic appeared “depressive” and offered “no resistance” when arrested on Serbian territory.

The capture of Karadzic comes two weeks after Serbia got a new pro-European Union membership government dominated by Tadic’s pro-Western Democratic Party, with the support of the reformed Socialists of late president Slobodan Milosevic.

Along with his former army chief Ratko Mladic, Karadzic had evaded the ICTY since 1995 when they were charged with war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity during Bosnia’s 1992-1995 war.

Mladic, 65, is now one of only two remaining fugitives of The Hague-based court. The other is Goran Hadzic, 49, a former Serb politician wanted for “ethnic cleansing,” but in Croatia.

Karadzic’s arrest was promptly welcomed by the United States, the European Union, and the UN war crimes court, as well as an association of mothers of those killed in the 1995 Srebrenica massacre.

And UN chief Ban Ki-moon hailed it as “a historic moment for the victims.”

“This is a historic moment for the victims, who have waited 13 years for Mr. Karadzic to be brought to justice,” Ban said in a statement released by his press office.

The statement said the secretary general was “heartened” by the arrest of Karadzic and commended Serbian authorities “for this decisive step toward ending impunity for those indicted for serious violations of international law during the conflict in the former Yugoslavia.”

UN war crimes chief prosecutor Serge Brammertz, who cancelled a planned trip to Belgrade Tuesday after the arrest, praised the government in Serbia, whose cooperation with the UN court is the main obstacle to the Balkan country’s EU integration.

A White House statement also congratulated Belgrade and noted the poignant timing of its achievement.