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How to escape international justice for 13 years

Mark Urban | 18:35 UK time, Tuesday, 22 July 2008

karadic203.jpgIn these days of spy satellites, CCTV surveillance and biometrics, how does someone escape international justice for 13 years?

It's a question worth asking following the capture of Radovan Karadzic, since it's equally relevant to the question of how Osama bin Laden or Mullah Omar remain at large after worldwide manhunts.

The view about Karadzic used to be that he was hiding in some mountain shack in eastern Bosnia, living the life of a peasant hermit.

But now he has been arrested we know that he was a successful Second Lifer, alias Dragan Dabic, plying his trade on Serbia's alternative medicine scene. He practised at a clinic in New Belgrade, attended conferences and wrote regularly for a magazine called 'Healthy Life', of all things.

It has long been suspected that Karadzic was aided by sympathisers, including people within the Serbian intelligence services.

Undoubtedly this is true, but it is remarkable that he had spent years living openly in his new life, and had even become a minor public figure as Dragan Dabic. Had nobody recognised his voice, his accent or his mannerisms?

newkaradic203.jpgKaradzic was a man with a large price on his head, Belgrade a city with plenty of people who find the Bosnian Serb leader's ideologies abhorrent or lost their homes as a result of them. In other words, Karadzic alias Dabic passed people every day who could not be relied upon to keep his secret and indeed might have had a motive for uncovering him.

The answer seems to be that if you change your appearance sufficiently, have a professionally supplied new identity (friends in the intelligence services are always helpful), and a tight network of those willing to offer shelter, you will go far.

But the other elements in this were that Karadzic retained the sympathy of many Serbs, (perhaps some of those who met Dr Dabic were suspicious but chose not to reveal it) and of friends in high places in the Serbian state. These protectors were evidently brushed aside by the new pro-western government of President Tadic.

Evaded justice

Many of the same factors that conspired in Karadazic's favour have evidently kept his fellow indictee, Gen Ratko Mladic at liberty too. Some of them clearly operate in the case of the al-Qaeda leadership.

With connections, some popular sympathy, a good disguise and sufficient nerve it is therefore possible to evade international justice or the forces of a state as powerful as the USA for many years.

This remains true despite all of the advances in surveillance technology and the reach of global intelligence organisations. But while Karadzic was successful for 13 years, ultimately he was caught, and that is a lesson in the need for perseverance.

Comments

  • Comment number 1.

    How does someone escape international justice for 13 years you ask?

    I would have thought the easiest way would be to come and live in Britain.

    The establishment here don't care about punishing criminals - even mass murdering war criminals.

    All you ever hear are excuses for why they couldn't help it or that they were disadvantaged, or they didn't realize it was wrong, or they had nothing to do and we should all say ahhh and understand whilst traipsing through the blood of their victims.

  • Comment number 2.

    Pol Pot evaded justice for 18 years after the death of circa 1.7 million people due to his policies. He was useful to the powerful though, whereas Karadzic is not.

    Justice?

  • Comment number 3.

    Good point manchester me :)

    It recalls to my mind the Belsen scientists who were not put on trial at Nuremberg because they agreed to help the British establish a working nerve gas production plant at Nancekuke in Cornwall.

    It seems that as long as you are 'useful' to someone in power they (and more often than not their lawless and wholly unaccountable 'intelligence services') will always find some way to assist you evade the consequences of your actions.

    Of corse, every now and then, they have to 'capture' someone so as to convince we lesser mortals that they are bringing people to justice.

  • Comment number 4.

    If this was a Moslem who had killed thousands of Serbs, he could certainly find sanctuary in the UK. He would receive a nice house and garden, plus benefits, and probably a spot on the radio or at least a Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ programme on which he could spout about sharia law, For this he would gain the support of a certain High Court Judge. All this is ofcourse hypothetical, and the man in question is a Serb, so the frenzy to try and condemn him starts.

  • Comment number 5.

    I wonder how the history of today will be written in 300 years time.

  • Comment number 6.

    13 years isn't that much, and nor is 18 years for Pol Pot.

    "Dr. Death" or Aribert Heim, was a Nazi war criminal who was indicted in Germany (after WW2) of the murder of hundreds of inmates at the Mauthausen concentration camp in 1941, where he would phenol (a corrosive poison) directly into the inmates hearts and other torturous methods, yet after being held for 2 1/2 years, he was released, and subsequently disappeared in 1962. There have been sightings of him in Argentina and the Argentinian Justice Minister has agreed to arrest and extradite him.

    Source:

    Which goes to show perseverance does pay off.

  • Comment number 7.

    #5 -Blogpolice wrote:

    "I wonder how the history of today will be written in 300 years time."

    Same as the last 300 years, BP. In blood.

  • Comment number 8.

    Not quite on this same topic, but the Editor may want to know about--and cover-- the upcoming (Tuesday, 29 July) verdict in the 'Kravice Warehouse' case from the War Crimes chamber of the State Court of BiH in Sarajevo. In this case, 11 Defendants are accused of war crimes and genocide as a result of the killing of over 1,000 Muslim men in July of 1995 during the Serb operations in Srebrenica. It is, I believe, the largest genocide trial in europe since WW2. Particularly relevant given the recently renewed interest in Mr. Karadic.

    Mapleseed

  • Comment number 9.

    Whilst I wonder if Karadic evaded justice due to a "dodgy" deal between Russia and the West they have him now. If anybody deserves to be at the Hague its him.

    A good day for humanity and even better if Mladic follows.

  • Comment number 10.

    War Criminals from powerful western nations tend to escape justice forever.

    Imagine for a moment that Britain and the US bomb Iran. Iran responds by having sleeper agents target Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Television centre with a large bomb which wrecks the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ and kills many people.

    I can imagine Gordon Brown standing up in parliament damning it as terrorism or a war crime that will be punished.
    The media would no doubt condemn it in the same way (including the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ).

    However, by our own sickeningly low standards, such a terrible act is perfectly ok. NATO bombed Serbian State TV in 1999, killing 16 Civilians. Just the other day, the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ published an article explaining that bombing TV stations is ok.


    So if such a despicable act occurs, can we rely on the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ to stick to their current line of reasoning, and explain to the public that bombing TV stations is perfectly ok.

  • Comment number 11.

    Glad he was caught - personally I have no problem saying that the execution of 7000 unarmed and helpless prisoners is wrong.

    The Karadzic case says a lot about people having the will to find these people - as soon as the government changed, and they want to be in the EU, suddenly they can find him.

    To catch him we put pressure on the people who sheltered him and this was far more effective than either moral arguments or military manhunts in the backwoods of Bosnia.

    Lesson for how to catch Bin-Laden (or Mugabe)?

  • Comment number 12.

    #11 - jon112uk

    'Lesson for how to catch Bin-Laden'

    Big difference. Bin-Laden may have to lie low but his movement is alive and well. Karadjic, on the other hand, had outlived his useful purpose.

  • Comment number 13.

    12. threnodio...

    Fair comment.

    I'm sure Bin-Laden would not be as easy as Karadzic : I wouldn't fancy the chances for two plain clothes police trying to arrest him in the middle of Balochistan or where ever.

    I'd still be interested to see how quickly the Pakistan ISI could tell someone where his is - if they were properly motivated.

  • Comment number 14.

    #13 - jon112uk

    It took 13 years to get Karadjic and he was wandering round a European capital in broad daylight. I would not get your hopes up of finding Bin Laden alive. Maybe someone might be tempted by a very large reward to deliver him dead but somehow I doubt it.

Μύ

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