Posted on Thu, Jul. 24, 2008
The capture of former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, who is wanted for war crimes, is a long overdue victory for international justice.
For 13 years, Karadzic has been one of Europe's most wanted fugitives. Indicted in 1995, he faces trial in the International Criminal Court on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity.
His trial can't come soon enough.
From 1992 to 1996, Karadzic allegedly masterminded the elimination of Muslims and Croats from Bosnia, Europe's worst example of slaughter since the Holocaust. He and his military commander, Gen. Ratko Mladic, are accused of ordering in 1995 the execution of 8,000 Muslim men and boys at Srebrenica, which was supposed to have been a haven protected by U.N. forces.
Karadzic also led the siege of Sarajevo in the early 1990s, a brutal epoch in which more than 10,000 civilians died.
Mladic is still at large, but Karadzic was finally captured Monday by Serbian authorities acting on a tip. He had been hiding in plain sight, having grown a bushy white beard to conceal his identity.
His capture underscores the limited reach of the ICC. Fugitives such as Karadzic and Sudanese President Omar Hassan Ahmed al-Bashir, indicted last week for genocide in Darfur, face justice only when the political conditions in their countries allow it. A new regime in Serbia apparently wanted to be viewed as cooperating with the rest of Europe, and suddenly Karadzic was found.
But the message from this tribunal is slowly having the desired effect. Heads of state can't escape justice for war crimes indefinitely.
email this
print this
reprint or license this
today's 
