By DUSAN STOJANOVIC, Associated Press Writer 4 minutes ago
BELGRADE, Serbia - A judge finished interrogating former Bosnian Serb President Radovan Karadzic early Tuesday, triggering a procedure to hand over the accused mastermind of Europe's worst massacre since World War II to a U.N. war crimes tribunal.
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Karadzic, a psychiatrist turned die-hard Serbian nationalist politician, was arrested by Serbian forces and taken before the country's war crimes court on Monday, indicating imminent extradition to the U.N. war crimes tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands.
"The questioning is over," investigating judge Milan Dilparic said Tuesday, referring to the first step in a legal process that includes presenting Karadzic with the indictment and allowing three days for him to appeal any decision to extradite him.
While Serbia braced for a possible reaction from ultra-nationalists who are believed to have helped shelter Karadzic over the years, Bosnian Muslims jammed the streets of Sarajevo early Tuesday in celebration of the arrest.
Karadzic is charged with masterminding the deadly siege of Sarajevo and mass killings that the U.N. war crimes tribunal described as "scenes from hell, written on the darkest pages of human history." They include the 1995 massacre of 8,000 Muslims in Srebrenica, Europe's worst slaughter since World War II.
Tribunal officials still had no clear idea Tuesday morning when he would be transferred. If a court approves Karadzic's extradition, he can still appeal and that could hold up his transfer for days or even weeks.
"We simply have no details," about a possible transfer timetable, prosecution spokeswoman Olga Karvan said. "We expect him soon."
Karadzic would be the 44th Serb suspect handed over to the U.N. tribunal. If that happened, he would live in the same block in which his political mentor, former Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic, died in 2006 while on trial for genocide.
Karadzic's alleged partner in the persecution and "cleansing" of tens of thousands of Bosnian Muslims and Croats, former Bosnian Serb military chief Ratko Mladic, remains at large.
Serbia has been under increasing international pressure to find Karadzic and turn him over. Still, his arrest came as a surprise to many. His whereabouts had been a mystery to U.N. war crimes prosecutors unlike those of Mladic, who had last been spotted living in Belgrade in 2005.
Serbian President Boris Tadic's office said Karadzic, 63, was arrested "in an action by the Serbian security services."
A Serbian police source, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not allowed to talk to the media, said Karadzic was seized in raid in a Belgrade suburb after weeks of surveillance of his safe house and a tip from a foreign intelligence service.
But Karadzic's attorney said the arrest occurred Friday on a bus. "He just said that these people showed him a police badge and than he was taken to some place and kept in the room. And that is absolutely against the law what they did," Sveta Vujacic told AP Television News.
Heavily armed special forces were deployed around the court in Belgrade as dozens of Karadzic supporters gathered nearby. Several were arrested after attacking reporters in front of the courthouse. Karadzic's brother, Luka, was also seen arriving at the location in central Belgrade.
Serbian police also deployed throughout central Belgrade as well as in front of the U.S. Embassy, which was targeted in nationalist rioting over Kosovo's declaration of independence in February.
In Sarajevo, residents poured into the streets singing, chanting, calling everyone they know. News of the Karadzic's arrest spread throughout the Bosnian capital within minutes — even before it was reported by local media.
More than a decade ago, the Serbs starved, sniped and bombarded Sarajevo's center from strongholds in Pale and Vraca high above the city, controlling nearly all roads into and out.
Sarejevo's inhabitants were kept alive only by a thin lifeline of food aid and supplies provided by UN donors and peacekeepers, and risked their lives merely walking down the street, shopping in a market or driving on one of the main roads, which became known as "Sniper Alley."
The siege, which began in April 1992, was not officially lifted until February 1996, after NATO intervention and the implementation of the Dayton Peace Accords. During that time, an estimated 10,000 people had died in and around the city.
The charges against Karadzic, last amended in May 2000, include genocide, extermination, murder, deportation, inhumane acts, and other crimes committed against Bosnian Muslim, Bosnian Croat and other non-Serb civilians in Bosnia during the 1992-1995 war.
Karadzic was born to a poor rural family in Montenegro. He trained as a psychiatrist and moved to Sarajevo with his wife and two children in the 1960s.
A flamboyant gambler and sometime poet, Karadzic became a founding member of the Serbian Democratic Party in Bosnia in 1990. Two years later, he was elected president of the three-person presidency of the breakaway Serbian republic in Bosnia, soon after Bosnia was recognized as an independent state by the United Nations. He became sole president of the Serb Republic in Bosnia that year, remaining in that position until 1996 and also serving as supreme commander of the armed forces.
Karadzic hobnobbed with international negotiators and his interviews were top news items during the 3 1/2-year Bosnian war. But his life changed by the time the war ended in late 1995 with tens of thousands of dead and another 1.8 million driven from their homes. He was indicted twice by the U.N. tribunal on genocide charges stemming from his alleged crimes against Bosnia's Muslims and Croats.
But he still wielded power among Bosnian Serbs from the shadows and occasionally appeared in public before he went on the run in 1998.
Karadzic's reported hide-outs included Serbian Orthodox monasteries and refurbished mountain caves in remote eastern Bosnia. Some newspaper reports said he had at times disguised himself as a priest by shaving off his trademark silver mane and donning a brown cassock.
The fugitive's wife, Ljiljana, told The Associated Press by phone from her home in Karadzic's former stronghold, Pale, that her daughter Sonja had called her before midnight.
"As the phone rang, I knew something was wrong. I'm shocked. Confused. At least now, we know he is alive," Ljiljana Karadzic said, declining further comment.
The White House called the arrest "an important demonstration of the Serbian government's determination to honor its commitment to cooperate with the International Criminal Tribunal."
A European Union statement said the arrest "illustrates the commitment of the new Belgrade government to contributing to peace and stability in the Balkans region."
"It proves the determination of the new Serbian government to achieve full cooperation with the ICTY (U.N. tribunal). It is also very important for Serbia's European aspirations," European Commission President Manuel Barroso said Tuesday as the EU foreign ministers arrived in Brussels for their monthly session.
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Associated Press Writers Mike Corder in The Hague, Aida Cerkez-Robinson in Sarajevo and Robert Wielaard in Brussels, Belgium, contributed to this report.
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