I know, I'm not supposed to submit really short diaries, but this is just too significant...
This guy was just captured:
I just saw this on CNN. They were quoting this brief AP report:
BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) — Top war crimes fugitive Radovan Karadzic has been arrested, the office of Serbia's president said Monday.
For those unfamiliar with the guy, here is the Wikipedia article (which already reports his arrest!):
[He is indicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague on the following charges]
* Two counts of genocide (Article 4 of the Statute - genocide, complicity in genocide);
* Five counts of crimes against humanity (Article 5 of the Statute - extermination, murder, persecutions on political, racial and religious grounds, persecutions, inhumane acts (forcible transfer);
* Three counts of violations of the laws or customs of war (Article 3 of the Statute - murder, unlawfully inflicting terror upon civilians, taking hostages);
* One count of grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions (Article 2 of the Statute - willful killing).
The man responsible for the death of over 200,000 Muslim Bosnians. There is hope for justice out there. At least that's how it feels right now!
[Update1] Just corrected the spelling of "Karadzic" to "Karadžić". It doesn't work very well in the title or the tags for some reason.
[Update2] Also corrected the casualties to "over 200,000". Sorry for the typo.
[Update3] This photo of Karadžić, courtesy of this post by Meteor Blades.
[Update4] This info is from Aljazeera.net:
The office of Boris Tadic, the Serbian president, said on Monday that Karadzic had been "located and arrested".
A statement said that he had been taken to a war crimes court in Belgrade, the Serbian capital.
Aljosa Milenkovic, reporting for Al Jazeera from Serbia, said Karadzic was captured by Serbian special forces inside Serbian territory.
"It's interesting that he has been captured under the new government ... during the previous three or four years the Serbian government said he [Karadzic] was not hiding in Serbia," Milenkovic said.
He said that Karadzic will be questioned by a special court in Serbia and then extradicted to The Hague.
"We will probably see Mr Karadzic, within seven days, in The Hague tribunal," he said.
Ratko Mladic, his military leader during the Balkans war from 1992 to 1995, is still to be captured.
Karadzic has been accused of genocide by the UN. They say he led troops to kill more than 7,500 male Bosnian Muslims in Srebrenica in July 1995.
[Update5] Here is a quote from a CNN article:
No details of his arrest were immediately available. But the chief prosecutor for the U.N. tribunal, Serge Brammertz, called it "an important day for the victims" and congratulated Serbian authorities for taking him into custody.
"It is also an important day for international justice, because it clearly demonstrates that nobody is beyond the reach of the law and that sooner or later all fugitives will be brought to justice," Brammertz said.
His arrest leaves former Gen. Ratko Mladic, the Bosnian Serb military commander, as the top-ranking war crimes suspect still at large.
Karadzic, a onetime psychiatrist, declared himself president of a Serb republic within Bosnia after the former Yugoslav republic declared its independence in 1992.
Backed by Serb-led Yugoslav troops, the Bosnian Serbs launched a campaign against the country's Muslim and Croat population that introduced the world to the term "ethnic cleansing." [emphasis added by diarist]
In 1995, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia accused Karadzic and Mladic of leading that campaign, ordering the roundup of thousands of non-Serb civilians into camps where they were killed, tortured or sexually assaulted.
Karadzic is also charged with genocide in connection with the killings of nearly 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys at Srebrenica, the worst European massacre since World War II.
[Update6] Ah... the hypocrisy. The government that refuses to accept the International Criminal Court The White House just issued the following press release:
Statement by the Press Secretary
Last update: 7:17 p.m. EDT July 21, 2008
WASHINGTON, Jul 21, 2008 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- Today, Serbian authorities conducted a successful operation to arrest Radovan Karadzic, the Bosnian Serb wartime political leader, on charges of war crimes committed during the 1992-1995 war in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Karadzic, who has long been a fugitive from justice, has been indicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity, including crimes relating to the sniping campaign against civilians in Sarajevo and the taking of UN peacekeepers as hostages. These offenses include a brutal campaign of ethnic cleansing directed at non-Serbs, organized attacks on places of worship, the operation of concentration camps, and the mass murder of thousands of Bosnian Muslim and Bosnian Croat civilians.
We congratulate the Government of Serbia, and thank the people who conducted this operation for their professionalism and courage. This operation is an important demonstration of the Serbian Government's determination to honor its commitment to cooperate with the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. The timing of the arrest, only days after the commemoration of the massacre of over 7,000 Bosnians committed in Srebrenica, is particularly appropriate, as there is no better tribute to the victims of the war's atrocities than bringing their perpetrators to justice.
SOURCE: White House Press Office
[Update7] AP released a much more detailed story just now. Here is the link.
[Update8] Here's a wikipedia article about the Srebrenica Massacre.