The real Dragan Dabic has emerged — and the 66-year construction worker was shocked to discover his identity had apparently been stolen by one of the world’s most notorious war crimes suspects.
Former Serbian president Radovan Karadzic assumed Dabic’s identity as a cover during the autocratic rule of his mentor, Yugoslavian president Slobodan Milosevic, officials said on Thursday, promising to track down anyone who helped the Bosnian Serb warlord stay on the run from genocide charges for nearly 13 years.
The true Dabic lives in Ruma, a Serbian town just north of Belgrade, said Rasim Ljajic, a government official in charge of war crimes.
PHOTO: AP
“Dabic’s ID differs from Karadzic’s only in the photographs of the two,” Ljajic said.
That discovery certainly altered Dabic’s plans for the day.
“Instead of working in the garden, I’m being besieged by reporters and answering telephone calls,” Dabic said in Ruma, adding that he had no idea how the copy of his ID ended up in Karadzic’s hands.
“This is unfair. Instead of finding out who really cooked this up, I’m being questioned by police,” said Dabic, who bears no physical resemblance to Karadzic.
It also meant that all earlier reports on other Dragan Dabics — one official said there were seven dead or alive in Sarajevo alone — were tossed aside as false leads.
Officials were trying to figure out whether Karadzic’s ID was a fake or an official copy of Dabic’s original.
Bruno Vekaric, spokesman for Serbia’s war crimes prosecutor, said Karadzic obtained the false papers while Milosevic’s regime was still in power.
Those suspected of helping Karadzic evade justice will be prosecuted, Vekaric said, adding that authorities hoped they could also help track down the remaining war crimes fugitives, including Bosnian Serb wartime military commander General Ratko Mladic.
Several hundred ultranationalists — chanting Karadzic’s name and denouncing Serbia’s new pro-Western government — marched in downtown Belgrade on Thursday in support of Karadzic.
Karadzic sent word he plans to defend himself against UN genocide charges. But his fellow Serbs were more enthralled with details of his secret life: a mistress, a bogus family in the US and regular visits to The Madhouse bar.
Meanwhile, an Austrian daily reported yesterday that Karadzic worked in Vienna as “miracle healer” during his years under cover.
The Kurier quotes a married couple as saying that Karadzic called himself “Pera” and saw patients in homes of Serbians living in the Austrian capital.
The couple, whose names were altered by the paper to protect their identity, say they sought his services after trying in vain to have children. Kurier quotes them as saying their encounter with him occurred in mid-2006 and that they last heard from him more than a year ago.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
DITCH TACTICS: Kenyan officers were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch suspected to have been deliberately dug by Haitian gang members A Kenyan policeman deployed in Haiti has gone missing after violent gangs attacked a group of officers on a rescue mission, a UN-backed multinational security mission said in a statement yesterday. The Kenyan officers on Tuesday were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch “suspected to have been deliberately dug by gangs,” the statement said, adding that “specialized teams have been deployed” to search for the missing officer. Local media outlets in Haiti reported that the officer had been killed and videos of a lifeless man clothed in Kenyan uniform were shared on social media. Gang violence has left
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including