JURIST - Paper Chase: War crimes suspect Radovan Karadzic captured after 13 years

[JURIST] Serbian President Boris Tadic announced Monday evening that Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic [BBC profile; JURIST news archive] had been captured earlier Monday by Serbian security forces. Karadzic is accused of war crimes stemming from his alleged involvement in the genocide of Bosnian Muslims and Croats during the ethnic conflicts in the former Yugoslavia. He is suspected of participation in the 1995 Srebrenica [JURIST news archive] massacre. The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) [official site] indicted him [ICTY indictment], but he has evaded arrest since 1995. Karadzic's arrest has been a major goal of the ICTY [press release], and follows the June arrest [JURIST report] of former Bosnian Serb police commander Stojan Zupljanin [Trial Watch profile]. AFP has more. B92 has local coverage.

ICTY Chief Prosecutor Serge Brammertz [ICC profile; JURIST report] has long criticized Serbia for its seeming reluctance to cooperate with the ICTY, exemplified by its failure to find and capture [JURIST report] the remaining war crimes suspects. Brammertz took over the prosecution's leadership in January, saying that he would continue his predecessor's tough stance on Serbian cooperation [JURIST report] with the tribunal. The EU has made Serbia's cooperation with the ICTY a key element of its membership negotiations [EU accession materials]. Brammertz has vowed to try all war crimes suspects [JURIST report] before the expiration of the ICTY's mandate in 2010.

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