by Amy Coleman, Staff Writer
Not only did Karadžić deny his involvement in the genoicide of the Bosnian
war, but he blamed the Bosnian government.
He suggested that Muslims faked two shellings in Sarajevo marketplaces
during a Serb siege, and that mannequins, not bodies, were thrown onto
trucks. This defense contradicts the
findings of the prior trial of General Stanislay Galic. In Galic's trial the
Hague court held Bosnian Serb forces responsible for the shelling. 
Karadžić was the
founding member and President of the Serbian Democratic Party (SDS) and
President of the National Security Council of the Serbian republic of Bosnia
and Herzegovina. He was a member of the Supreme Command of the armed forces of
the Serbian Republic from November 1992 and was the sole President of Republika
Srpska and Supreme Commander of the armed forces from 17 December 1992 until
his resignation on 19 July 1996.
In 1997, he went into hiding. He was found in 2008 in Belgrade, living as a
new age health guru named Dr. Dragan David Dabić.
Several months ago, Radovan Karadžić
opened his pro se defense on Tuesday,
October 16, 2012 with a statement that he should be “rewarded for all the good
things I have done,” reported the New York Times.
The Serbian wartime
leader is a controversial figure--loved by Serbs, but also believed to be
responsible for the heinous Srebrenica massacre in which
more than 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys were slaughtered and thrown into
mass graves.
Not only did Karadžić deny his involvement in the genoicide of the Bosnian
war, but he blamed the Bosnian government.
He suggested that Muslims faked two shellings in Sarajevo marketplaces
during a Serb siege, and that mannequins, not bodies, were thrown onto
trucks. This defense contradicts the
findings of the prior trial of General Stanislay Galic. In Galic's trial the
Hague court held Bosnian Serb forces responsible for the shelling.
Karadžić was born
in Yugoslavia (what is now Montenegro).
He studied medicine in Sarajevo, was a practicing physician and
psychiatrist, and was imprisoned for 11 months in 1985 for fraud.
Karadžić was the
founding member and President of the Serbian Democratic Party (SDS) and
President of the National Security Council of the Serbian republic of Bosnia
and Herzegovina. He was a member of the Supreme Command of the armed forces of
the Serbian Republic from November 1992 and was the sole President of Republika
Srpska and Supreme Commander of the armed forces from 17 December 1992 until
his resignation on 19 July 1996.
Karadžić stands
accused of waging a ruthless campaign to take control of Bosnia and purge it of
non-Serbs. The International Criminal
Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia indicted him in July 25, 1995, and again in
November 16th of the same year. The
crimes listed were genocide, murder, and rape as part of the ethnic cleansing
in which thousands of Bosnian Muslims and Croats were killed or displaced.
After the signing
of the Dayton Accords, in which Yugoslavia was divided into the autonomous
Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Republika Srpska, Karadžić
was forced out of the government because no one indicted for war crimes could
participate in the elections scheduled for September 14, 1996.
In 1997, he went into hiding. He was found in 2008 in Belgrade, living as a
new age health guru named Dr. Dragan David Dabić.
Karadžić was
indicted for war crimes involving the genocide of Bosnian Muslims in and around
Srebrenica in 1995. He also faces
charges of inhumane treatment, torture, and humiliation and degradation,
including physical and sexual violence against Bosnian Muslims, Bosnian Croats
and other non-Serbs.
His defense included that he
was a “mild man, a tolerant man with great capacity to understand others,”
according to the BBC. He suggested that
he stopped the Bosnian Serb army many times when it had been close to victory,
sought peace agreements, applied humanitarian measures and honored
international law.
