After nearly 13 years on the run, Radovan Karadzic, the former Bosnian Serb leader, was arrested this evening in a Belgrade suburb and turned over to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.
Karadzic is under indictment for war crimes stemming from the 1995 massacre of some 7,000 people (estimates vary) in Srebrenica and the siege of Sarajevo.
A late report from Reuters:
It brought people out in the night onto the streets of Sarajevo, the city his troops shelled mercilessly during a 43-month siege, to celebrate the capture of the man charged with authorizing the slaughter of 11,000 of their fellow citizens.
“I called and woke up my whole family,” said Sarajevo resident Fadil Bico, as cars streamed through the streets honking horns and Bosnian state radio played excerpts of Karadzic’s wartime hate speeches.
Serbia has been eager to be reincorporated into the larger European community and eventually join the EU. Karadzic’s arrest is an important step in that direction and comes just two weeks after a pro-EU government came to power in Serbia.
When I was in Belgrade last month, the desire for a return to the community of nations was palpable among the Serbs I spoke with, although I was admittedly traveling in reform circles. “See, we’re not bad,” one eager Serb told me.
