Karadzic sentenced to 40 years
Print Edition
FORMER Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic was convicted of genocide and nine other charges yesterday at a UN court, and sentenced to 40 years in prison.
The Yugoslav war crimes tribunal found Karadzic guilty of orchestrating Serb atrocities throughout Bosnia’s 1992-95 war that left 100,000 people dead. The UN court found Karadzic criminally responsible for genocide in the 1995 Srebrenica massacre in which 8,000 Muslim men and boys were slaughtered. He was also held criminally responsible for murder, attacking civilians and terror for overseeing the 44-month siege of the Bosnian capital, Sarajevo, during the war.
However, the court didn’t hold Karadzic responsible in a second genocide charge, for a campaign to drive Bosnian Muslims and Croats out of villages claimed by Serb forces.
Karadzic was captured in Belgrade, Serbia, in 2008. At the time, he was posing as a New Age healer, Dr. Dragan Dabic, and was disguised by a thick beard and shaggy hair.
He had faced a total of 11 charges and a maximum life sentence, but was given 40 years imprisonment.
Karadzic can appeal the ruling.
Prosecutors had accused Karadzic of being responsible as a political leader and commander-in-chief of Serb forces in Bosnia, which are accused of the atrocities of the war. The 70-year-old had insisted he was innocent and says his wartime actions were intended to protect Serbs.
Three others remain on trial, including military chief General Ratko Mladic, and Serb ultranationalist Vojislav Seselj. The judgment in Seselj’s case is scheduled for next Thursday.
The trial is hugely significant for the UN tribunal and the development of international law. Karadzic is the most senior Bosnian Serb leader to face prosecution at the court housed in a former insurance company headquarters in The Hague.
Karadzic’s conviction will most likely strengthen international jurisprudence on the criminal responsibility of political leaders for atrocities committed by forces under their control.
Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic, accused of fomenting deadly conflicts across the Balkans in the 1990s, died in his cell in The Hague in 2006 before judges could deliver verdicts in his trial.
Karadzic’s trial is one of the final acts at the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal. The court, set up in 1993, indicted 161 suspects.
Of them, 80 were convicted and sentenced, 18 acquitted, 13 sent back to local courts and 36 had the indictments withdrawn or died.
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