Karadzic's son answered for his father

Yesterday Sasa Karadzic, the son of 60-year-old Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, was arrested by NATO soldiers at his father-in-law's home in Pale. Sasha lived there with his wife and two children. This town, 16 km east of Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), was considered the patrimony of Karadzic. Several dozen military personnel in 16 vehicles and two helicopters took part in the operation. The house was searched, then Sasha was dressed in a bulletproof vest, a cap was put on his head, he was handcuffed and taken away by helicopter in an unknown direction, promising to bring him back in a day. As the arrestee’s sister Sonya clarified, NATO had previously agreed to meet with her brother, ostensibly to return to him the documents seized back in May during searches from this family.

At NATO headquarters in Brussels, Vremya Novostey confirmed the fact of Sasha’s arrest, but refrained from commenting, redirecting it to Sarajevo. Despite the transfer of the mandate of the international forces in Bosnia (SFOR) from NATO to the European Union (EUROFOR), the Alliance retained an office there. He has two tasks: to help reform the Bosnian army and to catch war criminals for the Hague Tribunal.

The NATO office in BiH said Karadzic's son had been "moved to a safe location" where he was supposedly available to the International Red Cross. It is alleged that Sasha was arrested on the basis of the mandate of “the international forces in BiH in accordance with the Dayton Agreements of 1995 and the powers of the UN Security Council” for “assisting a person hiding from the Hague Tribunal.”

The Serbs are convinced that Sasha's detention is connected with the hunt for his father, Radovan Karadzic. Professor of the Faculty of Law at the University of Belgrade Costa Čavoški considers the arrest of Karadžić Jr. “boundless savagery,” “in civilized countries, children do not bear responsibility for the possible guilt of their father.”

The Karadzic family links this arrest to the tenth anniversary of the Srebrenica massacre. On July 11, 1995, about 8 thousand Muslim males, including children and old people, died there. Political responsibility for this lies with Radovan Karadzic, and the Hague Tribunal has been trying to put him in the dock since 1997.

Katerina LABETSKAYA