Former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic was transferred to a UN jail cell yesterday to await trial on charges of waging a genocidal war against non-Serbs during the Balkan wars of the 1990s.
His arrival in a white Serbian government business jet from Belgrade marked the end of a 13-year effort by the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal to take custody of its most wanted war criminal, accused of responsibility for the deaths of tens of thousands of people and the sufferings of hundreds of thousands of Bosnian Muslims and Croats.
Tribunal spokeswoman Nerma Jelacic, confirming his arrival at the UN detention center outside The Hague, said the tribunal will “ensure his well being and right to a fair trial as much as possible and in accordance with the highest international standards.”
The tribunal declined to give details of the transfer, citing security in future cases. But the confirmation came shortly after a helicopter landed behind the high wall of the jail while another helicopter hovered overhead. Two black minivans drove through the prison gates moments earlier.
He was expected to be summoned before a judge within a few days and asked to enter a plea on each of 11 counts, including genocide, extermination and persecution.
Karadzic’s lawyer Sveta Vujacic said in Belgrade his client will postpone entering a formal plea for 30 days, the maximum allowed under court rules.
Vujacic also acknowledged he never filed an appeal against Karadzic’s extradition from Serbia, and said the days long uncertainty over the appeal helped stall Karadzic’s handover.
It is likely to be several months before his trial begins, and could take several years before it concludes.
Prosecutors allege Karadzic masterminded atrocities including the July 1995 massacre of 8,000 Muslim men and boys in the Bosnian town of Srebrenica, the deadly siege of Sarajevo, and the detention of tens of thousands of people in 20 concentration camps where many were tortured, starved and sexually abused.
Hours before he left Belgrade, about 15,000 Serb extremists rallied in a main square in the Serb capital demanding a halt to the extradition. Several hundred hooligans separated from the group and hurled stones and burning flares at riot police.
Later, police fired tear gas and rubber bullets at large groups of demonstrators, trying to push them away from the square as the rally ended. Nationalist organizers had predicted a much larger turnout.
Belgrade’s emergency clinic reported that 46 people were injured, including 25 policemen and 21 civilians. Most were lightly injured, doctors said, adding that only one civilian and one policeman were hospitalized. A Spanish TV journalist was among the injured.
Meanwhile, Bosnia’s war crimes court sentenced seven Bosnian Serbs to prison terms ranging from 38 to 42 years on Tuesday for taking part in the Srebrenica massacre.
The Philippines yesterday said its coast guard would acquire 40 fast patrol craft from France, with plans to deploy some of them in disputed areas of the South China Sea. The deal is the “largest so far single purchase” in Manila’s ongoing effort to modernize its coast guard, with deliveries set to start in four years, Philippine Coast Guard Commandant Admiral Ronnie Gil Gavan told a news conference. He declined to provide specifications for the vessels, which Manila said would cost 25.8 billion pesos (US$440 million), to be funded by development aid from the French government. He said some of the vessels would
CARGO PLANE VECTOR: Officials said they believe that attacks involving incendiary devices on planes was the work of Russia’s military intelligence agency the GRU Western security officials suspect Russian intelligence was behind a plot to put incendiary devices in packages on cargo planes headed to North America, including one that caught fire at a courier hub in Germany and another that ignited in a warehouse in England. Poland last month said that it had arrested four people suspected to be linked to a foreign intelligence operation that carried out sabotage and was searching for two others. Lithuania’s prosecutor general Nida Grunskiene on Tuesday said that there were an unspecified number of people detained in several countries, offering no elaboration. The events come as Western officials say
A plane bringing Israeli soccer supporters home from Amsterdam landed at Israel’s Ben Gurion airport on Friday after a night of violence that Israeli and Dutch officials condemned as “anti-Semitic.” Dutch police said 62 arrests were made in connection with the violence, which erupted after a UEFA Europa League soccer tie between Amsterdam club Ajax and Maccabi Tel Aviv. Israeli flag carrier El Al said it was sending six planes to the Netherlands to bring the fans home, after the first flight carrying evacuees landed on Friday afternoon, the Israeli Airports Authority said. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also ordered
Former US House of Representatives speaker Nancy Pelosi said if US President Joe Biden had ended his re-election bid sooner, the Democratic Party could have held a competitive nominating process to choose his replacement. “Had the president gotten out sooner, there may have been other candidates in the race,” Pelosi said in an interview on Thursday published by the New York Times the next day. “The anticipation was that, if the president were to step aside, that there would be an open primary,” she said. Pelosi said she thought the Democratic candidate, US Vice President Kamala Harris, “would have done
RSS