Angry Serb nationalists protest Karadzic arrest

[CroRadio.net]

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hDN-CfGY3szC6ylS1zL87_tRXoSwD9237L2G0

Angry Serb nationalists protest Karadzic arrest
By JOVANA GEC

BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) — Serb nationalists skirmished with riot police
in the capital Tuesday, lashing out against the new Western-leaning
government that captured war crimes suspect Radovan Karadzic.
Karadzic's lawyer vowed to appeal Serbia's plan to extradite the
former Bosnian Serb chief to a U.N. war crimes court.

Riot police deployed in downtown Belgrade to keep about 200 members of
the extremist Obraz group under control. The demonstrators threw
stones and clay pots at the officers, chanting "treason!" and trying
to break through police cordons.

Five demonstrators and a policeman were injured, doctors at Belgrade
emergency clinic said.

"This is a hard day for Serbia," said Tomislav Nikolic, leader of the
ultranationalist Serbian Radical Party, adding that Karadzic was "a
legend of the Serbian people."

Nikolic vowed his party will do "all in its power" to topple the pro-
Western government.

In the village of Petnjica, where Karadzic was born, a relative of the
wartime Bosnian Serb leader, Vukosav Karadzic, said he was "sorry he
did not kill himself but allowed himself to be captured."

Serb officials say they arrested Karadzic Monday evening near Belgrade
after more than a decade on the run. The war crime suspect had grown a
long white beard to conceal his identity and had lived freely in the
capital before being arrested.

"His false identity was very convincing," said Vladimir Vukcevic,
Serbia's war crimes prosecutor who coordinated the security forces
arrest. "He had moved freely in public places."

Karadzic is sought on 11 charges of genocide, war crimes and crimes
against humanity for his actions during Bosnia's 1992-1995 war. The
psychiatrist-turned-Serbian-nationalist is accused of masterminding
the deadly wartime siege of Sarajevo and the 1995 executions of some
8,000 Muslim boys and men in Srebrenica.

While on the run in Serbia, the world's top war crimes fugitive worked
at a private alternative medicine clinic and wrote for a Belgrade
magazine, according to Serbian officials. Karadzic also lectured about
meditation at a May festival in Belgrade.

To do all this, Karadzic used an alias, Dragan Dabic, government
minister Rasim Ljajic said at a press conference Tuesday. He displayed
a recent photo of an unrecognizable Karadzic with long white beard and
hair.

Ljajic refused to reveal more details about the arrest, saying
Karadzic's movements were being analyzed to help track down another
war crimes suspect, Bosnian Serb wartime commander Ratko Mladic.
Serbian security services found Karadzic, 63, while looking for
Mladic, he said.

Karadzic was questioned early Tuesday by a Serbian judge who later
ruled that he can be handed over to the U.N. war crimes tribunal in
The Hague, Netherlands, Vukcevic said.

Karadzic has three days to appeal. His lawyer, Sveta Vujacic, said he
will fight extradition on the last day, Friday, to thwart authorities'
desire for an immediate transfer.

Karadzic's arrest appeared to be linked to a change in political will.

Serbian President Boris Tadic's pro-Western government came to power
only two weeks ago and appointed a new security chief, replacing an
aide to former nationalist prime minister Vojislav Kostunica.

Liberal politician Nenad Canak said Kostunica and his nationalist
allies had protected Karadzic and Mladic for years.

That assessment matched comments from the former U.S. ambassador to
Bosnia, Richard Holbrooke.

Karadzic "was protected by people who knew who he was," Holbrooke told
CNN on Tuesday. "NATO did not make an all-out effort to capture him at
the beginning, in 1996, which was a terrible mistake. They knew
exactly where he was.

"And then he slipped away and he was sheltered by people."

There was no immediate comment from Kostunica to Karadzic's arrest.

European Union foreign ministers said the arrest helped Serbia's bid
for EU membership, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel called it a
"historic moment."

"The victims need to know: Massive human rights violations do not go
unpunished," she said in Berlin.

Karadzic's whereabouts had been a mystery since he went on the run in
1998, with his early hideouts reportedly including monasteries and
mountain caves in remote eastern Bosnia.

Karadzic's family in Bosnia, banned from leaving the country over
suspicions they helped him elude capture, asked Tuesday to have the
restrictions lifted, his daughter told The Associated Press.

Sonja Karadzic said family members want to spend at least a few hours
with Karadzic before his transfer to U.N. custody.

"For years we have not seen our father, husband and grandfather; my
mother's health is not very good, and we do not have the financial
means necessary to travel to Netherlands," she said.

Once he is extradited to The Hague court, Karadzic will become the
second most important defendant ever at the tribunal custody. Former
Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic also was tried for genocide but
died of a heart attack in 2006.

Karadzic is accused of orchestrating the worst massacre of Bosnia's
war, when Serb troops overran the U.N.-protected enclave of Srebrenica
and slaughtered thousands of Bosnian Muslim men and boys.

Karadzic is also linked to the 3 1/2-year siege of Sarajevo, when
Bosnian Serb troops starved, sniped and bombarded the city from hills
high above it. Residents were kept alive by a thin lifeline of food
and supplies provided by U.N. donors and peacekeepers.

The siege lasted from 1992 to February 1996. An estimated 10,000
people died.

By the time the Bosnian war ended in late 1995, an estimated 250,000
people were dead and another 1.8 million driven from their homes.

Associated Press writers Dusan Stojanovic in Belgrade; Radul
Radovanovic in Pale, Bosnia-Herzegovina; Predrag Milic in Podgorica,
Montenegro; Mike Corder in The Hague, Netherlands; and Robert Wielaard
in Brussels, Belgium, contributed to this report.