Former Bosnian-Serb leader Karadzic jailed for Srebrenica massacre
UN court sentences Radovan Karadzic to 40 years in jail after finding him criminally responsible for the 1995 Srebrenica genoicde of 8,000 Muslim men and boys
Former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic
Former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadžić has been sentenced to 40 years in jail after he was “held criminally responsible” for the 1995 genocide in Srebrenica.
The decision from a UN tribunal in The Hague was delivered 18 months after a five-year trial of Karadžić, who was accused of being one of the chief architects of wartime atrocities. Notably, he was accused of orchestrating the 1995 massacre of around 8,000 Muslim men and boys in the Srebrenica enclave of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Karadžić, 70, faced 11 charges at the international criminal tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), including two counts of genocide.
He pleaded not guilty and insisted his actions were aimed at protecting Serbs during the conflict.
Prosecutors argued that Karadžić, as political leader and commander in chief of Serb forces in Bosnia, was responsible for some the worst acts of brutality during the war, including the Srebrenica massacre and the 44-month deadly siege of Sarajevo.
The presiding ICTY judge, O-Gon Kwon, earlier said that the court had found Karadzic not to be responsible for genocide in attacks on other towns and villages where Croats and Bosnians were driven out.
The verdict is the most important moment in the 23-year existence of the ICTY, and one of the last that it will deliver.
Set up in 1993, the court has so far indicted 161 suspects, out of which 80 were convicted and sentenced, 18 acquitted, and 13 sent back to local courts. The remaining 36 had the indictments withdrawn or died.
Karadžić, a former psychiatrist and charismatic politician, is the most senior Balkans leader to face judgment at the ICTY.
The former Serbian president Slobodan Milošević died in his cell in The Hague in 2006 before judges could deliver their verdicts on his trial.
Three other suspects remain on trial, including Karadžić’s military chief Ratko Mladić and Serb ultranationalist Vojislav Šešelj.
Eight cases are being appealed and two defendants are to face retrials. The judgment in Šešelj’s case is scheduled for next Thursday.
Karadžić was indicted along with Mladić in 1995 but evaded arrest until he 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 shaggy hair and a thick beard.
