World

Karadzic Sent to Hague as Serbs Protest

by Dave Keating | July 29, 2008 at 11:38 pm

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Accused war criminal Radovan Karadzic, who is accused of leading the massacre of Bosnian Muslims in the 1990s Yugoslav civil wars, has been sent to the Hague to face an international criminal court. Before he left, 15,000 Serb nationalists took to the strees in Belgrade yesterday to protest the Serbian government's decision to arrest him.

The arrest has prompted the EU to examine lifting trade blocks between Serbia and the EU.

Long one of the most-wanted fugitives in the world, Radovan Karadzic, the Bosnian Serb leader blamed for inciting his followers to join him in a brutal ethnic war, was delivered Wednesday to a prison cell in The Hague for eventual trial by a United Nations war crimes tribunal.

Radovan Karadzic arrived in Rotterdam on Wednesday before being transferred to a prison in the Netherlands.

About 15,000 protesters rallied in Belgrade on Tuesday night to support the former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, who is facing war crimes charges.

Mr. Karadzic, who was arrested in Serbia last week, was taken from the Belgrade war crimes court at roughly 3:45 a.m., escorted by masked Serbian security officers, according to the Serbian war crimes prosecutor, Vladimir Vukcevic. Mr. Karadzic’s plane landed in Rotterdam, not far from The Hague, about two hours later. He was then transferred by helicopter to the Scheveningen penitentiary in The Hague, where the United Nations has its own modern cellblock.