Radovan Karadzic Transferred to Britain to Serve Jail Sentence

Radovan Karadžić. Foto: MICT

Radovan Karadzic was transferred from the UN Detention Unit in Scheveningen in The Hague to Britain on Wednesday, the former Bosnian Serb president’s lawyer Goran Petronijevic told Bosnian media.

Petronijevic added that he had talked to Karadzic briefly on Wednesday when he landed in London, but has no further information on his whereabouts.

The UN court in The Hague sentenced Karadzic to life in prison in March 2019 for the genocide of Bosniaks from Srebrenica, the persecution of Bosniaks and Croats across the country during wartime, terrorising the population of Sarajevo during the siege of the city, and taking UN peacekeepers hostage.

Karadzic contested the decision by the Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals in The Hague to send him to Britain to serve his sentence, claiming he could become the target for a potentially deadly attack by other prisoners.

His defence team argued that Karadzic, 75, “would be in danger from Muslim extremists”.

It also said that to keep Karadzic safe from attack, he would have to be kept in conditions similar to solitary confinement.

It cited an attack at Wakefield jail in Britain in 2010 on Bosnian Serb Army general Radislav Krstic, whose face and neck were slashed by three Muslim prisoners in his cell.

Krstic, who like Karadzic was convicted of the genocide of Bosniaks from Srebrenica, was transferred back to the Netherlands and then to a Polish jail.

However, the UN court dismissed his objections.