Bosnian-Serb genocide suspect Radovan Karadzic is to defend himself before the United Nations war-crimes court, his lawyer said on Wednesday, raising memories of the trial of his late ally, Slobodan Milosevic.
”Karadzic will have a legal team in Serbia that will help him with his defence but he will defend himself” at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), Tanjug news agency quoted lawyer Svetozar Vujacic as saying.
Karadzic, who stands indicted for genocide and crimes against humanity, was arrested in Belgrade on Monday after more than a decade on the run. He evaded capture partly thanks to a fake identity as an alternative health guru.
The wartime Bosnian-Serb political leader was a close ally of former Yugoslav president Milosevic, who died in custody in The Hague in 2006, before the ICTY delivered a verdict in his case.
Milosevic had also chosen to defend himself, even while refusing to recognise the legality of the court.
Earlier, Vujacic had said that he would file an appeal against Karadzic being sent to the ICTY, in a bid to postpone the transfer for as long as possible.
”I will lodge the complaint on the last day of the deadline, on Friday. I do not think it will be adopted, but I will disrupt their plans to transfer him,” Vujacic said on Tuesday.
Vujacic estimated Karadzic might not be transferred to the ICTY ”before the end of next week”.
Under Serbia’s law on cooperation with the ICTY, suspects can appeal their transfer to the UN war-crimes court before a special committee approves the move.
The process could take up to nine days, but Serbia’s war-crimes prosecution has said it expects Karadzic to be sent to the UN court by Monday or Tuesday at the latest.
Virtually unrecognisable
Since his arrest, public imagination has been captured by the fake identity he forged as an alternative health medicine guru, which enabled Karadzic to avoid being detected for so long.
Karadzic had made himself virtually unrecognisable in order eke out a living by practising alternative medicine under the false name of Dragan Dabic, tricking health writers, naturopaths, landlords and many others.
The 63-year-old disguised himself under flowing white hair, a thick beard, glasses and a white Panama hat, enabling him to move freely throughout Belgrade and several Serbian towns.
One Serbian daily described the look as that of a ”loveable guru”.
He used public transport, even appeared on television and drank at cafes in downtown Belgrade’s main boulevard with other naturopaths.
As part of his alter ego, Karadzic even created a personal website that tricked naturopaths and health writers into welcoming him into their domain.
The online biography says he obtained a psychiatry diploma in Moscow before ”specialising in various methods of alternative medicine” in India and Japan.
”The doctor returned to Serbia in the middle of the 1990s to become … one of the most eminent experts in the field of alternative medicine,” said the text on the webpage interspersed with photographs of the new-look Karadzic.
Karadzic was finally tracked down and nabbed by Serbian security forces on a suburban bus in the capital, Belgrade, after an apparent tip-off.
Meanwhile, Karadzic’s daughter appealed to the powerful international envoy to Bosnia to return the family’s seized travel papers, and to allow them to visit him in a Belgrade prison cell.
”I ask for Mr [Miroslav] Lajcak … to enable our trip to Belgrade, since it is very likely the last chance to see my father,” Sonja Karadzic-Jovicevic said.
”My mum is sick, and our financial situation is such that we could not afford to make a visit to The Hague.”
Karadzic faces 11 counts of genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and other atrocities before the UN tribunal.
The charges are mainly related to two of Europe’s worst atrocities since World War II, the 44-month siege of Sarajevo, which killed more than 10 000 people, and the Srebrenica massacre of about 8 000 Muslim men and boys.
In Bosnia’s bitter inter-ethnic war, Karadzic is also said to have authorised so-called ”ethnic cleansing” in which more than a million non-Serbs were driven from their homes.
Karadzic’s arrest means there are only two more fugitives of the UN court at large. They are his former military commander, Ratko Mladic (65) and Goran Hadzic (49), a former Serb politician wanted for ”ethnic cleansing” in Croatia. — AFP
