Karadzic held for days before arrest announcement: lawyer

Tag : top dyed

Radovan Karadzic, the top war crimes fugitive who evaded capturefor almost 13 years, was arrested on a suburban bus in a disguise,Serbian newspapers have said.
"He had a long beard and his hair was dyed in black. He had atravel bag with him, and it appears he was prepared to leaveBelgrade" and offered no resistance when detained, the dailyPolitika said without giving any sources.
Serbian authorities have yet to reveal any details about thecapture of Karadzic, one of the world's most wanted men, onlysaying in a brief statement that it occurred on Monday night,without even revealing the location.
He remains in custody in Belgrade awaiting extradition to theHague.
While some papers claimed Karadzic was arrested in a flat incentral Belgrade, several others reported he had been caught on acity bus linking a central part of the capital with the suburb ofBatajnica.
But his lawyer, Svetozar Vujacic, told reporters Karadzic wasarrested on Friday night, while taking a bus between two suburbs ofBelgrade, and had been held for three days before the announcement.
"Radovan Karadzic was arrested on Friday morning around 9.30 on thepublic bus," Mr Vujacic said.
"By the law he should have been taken to the judge immediately sono one knows who arrested him, who ordered that and who kept himfor three days until he was brought here tonight.
"Radovan Karadzic himself doesn't know that either.
"He just said that these people showed him a police badge and thanhe was taken to some place and kept in the room.
"He was blindfolded ... he was kept in some room. ... And that isabsolutely against the law what they did.
"The judge also said that he will look into this matter, who andwhy kept him for three days.
"He said he doesn't want to talk [and] he is not eating ... theyhave offered him some food, but he is not eating.
"The judge said that some medicines will be provided. He wasexamined by doctor and he is healthy." On the run
During his 13 years on the run, Karadzic has reportedly disguisedhimself as an Orthodox monk, with a shaved head and hiding inmountains between Bosnia, Serbia and Montenegro.
Some reports even claimed he had fled to Russia, finding shelteramong Russian nationalists who supported Bosnian Serbs during the1992-1995 war in Bosnia.
Karadzic was last seen and photographed in the former Bosnian Serbmilitary stronghold Han Pijesak in July 1996, a year after theInternational Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY)made his indictment public.
After that, he was rarely spotted in public, although former UN warcrimes tribunal prosecutor Carla del Ponte insisted he had been inhiding on the territory of the former Yugoslavia.
His last sighting was reportedly in 2005, in the Montenegrin townof Niksic, close to the border with Bosnia, where he allegedly haddinner with his wife in a small restaurant. This was neverconfirmed.
There were only a few political reactions to Monday's action -ultra-nationalist Radical Party official Aleksandar Vucic describedKaradzic's arrest as a "new shame for Serbia."
Pro-European Serbian President Boris Tadic "has done everything toensure that Serbia disappears," the daily Politika quoted Mr Vucicas saying in reference to the shrinking former Yugoslav republicthat lost four wars in the 1990s.
European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana said he hopedKaradzic's arrest would now help unblock a key EU-Serbia accord.
"We have to talk to the prosecutor of the international tribunal,but I am almost certain he is going to say there is fullcooperation," Mr Solana said.
- AFP/APTN
Tags: law-crime-and-justice , international-law , unrest-conflict-and-war , bosnia-and-herzegovina , serbia