At two minutes past four on Thursday afternoon, a tall man with swept-back silver hair stepped into a blue and yellow courtroom in The Hague, defendant in case IT-95-05/18 at the international war crimes tribunal.
His face had a waxy, almost deathly pallor. He carried a black plastic briefcase, wore a new dark suit and new white shirt. He stood upright and chatted in English with the two armed guards in blue United Nations uniforms flanking him, then unbuttoned the suit and sat down to await the arrival of Judge Alphonse Orie of The Netherlands
Radovan Karadzic (63) looked older and thinner than when he ruled the roost in Bosnia 14 years ago. But without the long white beard and the thick mane of hair that were the essence of his disguise during a 12-year vanishing act, Karadzic was unmistakably the same garrulous character whom the Muslims of Bosnia regard as a monster — the attention-seeking narcissist whose ambitions, complexes and rages spelt misery for millions during the 1992 to 1995 war in Bosnia.
Being treated OK in prison? asked the judge. ”Mustn’t grumble,” said Karadzic. ”I’ve been in worse places.”
Health holding up? ”My health is perfect,” came the prompt response.
And your family, the judge inquired solicitously. Have they been told of your whereabouts?
”I don’t believe there is anyone who doesn’t know I’m in the [tribunal’s] detention unit,” Karadzic said with a smile.
The gallery giggled. The defendant bantered and derived a little satisfaction from being back at the centre of international attention. His has been a long absence, 12 years on the run as Europe’s most wanted man spent partly as Dr Dragan Dabic, a Serbian New Age guru back in Belgrade from America.
Arrested 10 days ago on a Belgrade bus and whisked to The Hague in the early hours of Wednesday, Karadzic on Thursday tried to seize the moment.
The former Bosnian Serb political leader is charged with orchestrating the mass murder of tens of thousands of Bosnians, mainly Muslims. On Thursday he declared that it was his life that was in danger. He donned his spectacles and started to read out a four-page statement.
It was all the Americans’ fault. He would have given himself up to the tribunal 10 years ago, but the Americans ordered him to vanish. He had reached a deal to that effect with Richard Holbrooke, the Clinton administration mediator on Bosnia, in 1996. ”There was an intention to liquidate me,” Karadzic stated. Disappear or die was the American ultimatum.
The judge cut Karadzic short, gave him two minutes to make his case, and told him to save the four-page submission for the trial proper, which will take several months to get under way.
Karadzic did not flinch as the judge began to give a glimpse into the horrors for which Karadzic is said to be responsible.
”You had power and control over Bosnian Serb forces including the military, paramilitary and police units that participated in the crimes alleged,” said the judge.
”You planned, ordered, committed or otherwise aided and abetted persecution and terror tactics to force non-Serbs out of parts of Bosnia-Herzegovina that had been proclaimed parts of the Bosnian Serbian Republic. It is alleged many of those non-Serbs … were either forcibly deported or killed.”
Karadzic, political leader of the Bosnian Serbs during the war, head of their governing Serbian Democratic party, and the commander-in-chief of its armed forces led by General Ratko Mladic, still on the run, was told he was being charged with one count of genocide for the mass murder at Srebrenica in July 1995, one count of complicity in genocide, five counts of crimes against humanity, and four counts of war crimes.
So far, not one of the 161 people indicted by the tribunal for war crimes in former Yugoslavia has been found guilty of genocide, although the court has established that genocide took place at Srebrenica in 1995; the prosecution against Karadzic will seek to prove that the worst of the Serbian ethnic cleansing, a whirlwind of violence and brutality in north-west Bosnia in the summer and autumn of 1992, also constituted genocide.
Karadzic declined to enter a plea, saying he would await the amended chargesheet. He refused any lawyers. ”I have an invisible adviser, but I have decided to represent myself,” he said.
The judge adjourned the case until August 29. Karadzic sipped water from a plastic cup, shuffled his papers, chatted with the court registrar, rebuttoned his suit and walked back to his cell. – guardian.co.uk