Judge rules on Karadžić's extradition to The Hague tribunal

14:21 Tue 22 Jul 2008 - Alex Bivol

A judge in Belgrade has ruled to extradite former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadžić to the UN war crimes tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague, reports in Serbia said on July 22.

Milan Dilparić, the investigative judge of Serbia's special court on war crimes, when asked whether the conditions for extradition were met, said that “everything’s taken care of“, Serbian broadcaster B92 reported. Karadžić is expecte to remain in the custody of the court until he is extradited.

Dilparić questioned Karadžić for about an hour and a half in the early hours of July 22. During the questioning, Karadžić told the judge that he was arrested on the evening of July 18, while traveling by bus between Novi Beograd to Batajnica neighbourhoods in the Serbian capital, B92 said quoted Karadžić's lawyer, Svetozar Vujačić, as saying. According to Vujačić, Karadžić has been held "in some room" since then.

The statement of the Serbian presidency, which announced late on July 21 that Karadžić had been arrested, said he was apprehended by the security service on July 21.

Vujačić also said, as quoted by B92, that Karadžić had remained silent throughout most of the questioning after describing the case against him as “a farce“.

Although Karadžić was refusing food and lost weight, he was reported to be healthy, B92 said.

News of Karadžić's arrest has been hailed by the US and the European Union, which has required full cooperation between Belgrade and ICTY before opening accession talks. In Serbia, no comments were immediately made by either pro-Western president Boris Tadić or prime minister Mirko Cvetković.

Foreign minister Vuk Jeremić, who was in Brussels for a scheduled meeting with EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana and Commissioner for enlargement Olli Rehn, said that the arrest proved that Serbia was "serious when it comes to her European fate".

“Serbia's new government has a rather ambitious European agenda. We are very serious about our future in the EU and we demonstrated it yesterday,” Jeremić said, as quoted by Tanjug news agency.