KARADZIC TO CONDUCT HIS OWN DEFENSE
Chinadaily.com.cn - July 24, 2008, Thursday
Radovan Karadzic will conduct his own defense in the Hague tribunal and is
convinced he will be cleared of the charges of genocide, relatives and
associates of the war crimes suspect said yesterday.
Karadzic, leader of the Bosnian Serbs in the 1992-95 Bosnia war, was arrested in
Serbia on Monday after 11 years on the run.
He was one of three war crimes fugitives from the Yugoslav wars, their arrest a
key condition for Serbia to move towards European Union membership. He is
currently in a Belgrade prison awaiting extradition, which could come sometime
this weekend.
Karadzic's lawyer in Serbia, Svetozar Vujacic, said his client was in good
mental and physical condition. He was not talking to investigators, but
"defending himself with silence." "He is going to have a legal team in Serbia
but will defend himself during his trial at The Hague," Vujacic said.
"He is convinced that with the help of God he will win." Karadzic is twice
indicted for genocide for the massacre of 8,000 Bosnian Muslims in the town of
Srebrenica in 1995 and for the 43-month siege of Sarajevo. Some 11,000 people
died in the city from sniper fire, mortar attacks, starvation and illness.
Karadzic had wanted Serb areas of Bosnia to be linked to Serbia and other
Serb-dominated areas.
The former Bosnian Serb leader lived under an assumed name for years and worked
as a doctor of alternative medicine, even launching a website to advertise.
He wore thick glasses and grew a bushy beard and long hair, which he wore in a
plaited topknot, to hide his famous face.
He was very devout, fasting every Wednesday and Friday, and on all big Orthodox
holidays. Freely moving around town, he was a regular in a Belgrade tavern owned
by a Bosnian Serb, where he drank red wine and chatted to guests.
Yesterday he asked and got a haircut and shave in prison.
"He looks like his old self, a bit aged," Vujacic said.
Vujacic said he would formally appeal against Karadzic's extradition order
tomorrow, when a legal deadline expires, to allow his family to visit, if they
are allowed to leave Bosnia.
Karadzic's wife and children are banned from leaving Bosnia under measures meant
to choke off Karadzic's support network. They are now waiting for permission to
travel to Serbia.
"He planned to turn himself in January 2009 because that is when the Hague
tribunal is due to stop launching new trials," his brother Luka Karadzic said.
Most Serbs see the Hague tribunal as biased against their nation.
"It would be more fair if he could be tried in Serbia with the presence of an
international judge." The arrest, two weeks into the term of Serbia's new
government, is a great success for the coalition of the pro-Western Democrats
and the Socialist Party founded by late Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic, a
onetime backer of Karadzic.
The EU has called the arrest "a milestone" on Serbia's road to joining the EU
but said Belgrade must go further to reap the full benefits, by arresting
Karadzic's military chief Ratko Mladic, who is wanted on the same charges.
Inside Serbia, the reaction has been muted. Government ministers have kept
quiet, fearing a backlash from hard-line nationalists who see Karadzic and
Mladic as heroes.
"All true Serbs know what Radovan Karadzic stands for," the group Obraz
(Dignity) said in a statement. "If Serbia's enemies and their servants here
think they have destroyed his legend, they are very wrong. We are all Radovan."
Among the main nationalist parties, reaction has been limited to fiery rhetoric
about betrayal. There have been few, small street protests, and ordinary people
seem to be weighing the benefits of closer EU ties against national pride.
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