SARAJEVO, March 3 (Hina) - No deal has ever been made with former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, which would guarantee him that he would not be arrested and that would not be tried by the International Criminal Tribunal for the
former Yugoslavia (ICTY), a former U.S. peace mediator for the Balkans, Richard Holbrooke said.
tovi-Politika-Diplomacija
SARAJEVO, March 3 (Hina) - No deal has ever been made with former
Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, which would guarantee him that
he would not be arrested and that would not be tried by the
International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), a
former U.S. peace mediator for the Balkans, Richard Holbrooke said.#L#
Responding to recent claims of Karadzic's wife, Ljiljana
Zelen-Karadzic, who said that he personally gave assurances to
Karadzic that he would not be nabbed if he withdrew from the political
life, Holbrooke, said there had been no agreement with that fugitive
war criminal.
He (Karadzic) stepped down because of the US pressure which was
exerted on him with the assistance of Slobodan Milosevic. He was
offered nothing in return, Holbrooke was quoted by the Sarajevo-based
Dnevni Avaz daily as saying on Wednesday.
Hollbrooke, the architect of the 1995 Dayton peace accords which
stopped the war in Bosnia, described the fact that Ratko Mladic and
Radovan Karadzic are still at large as the biggest failure since the
conclusion of the Dayton agreement.
Labelling Karadzic and Mladic as Europe's Osama bin Laden and Saddam
Hussein, the American said their arrest was of crucial importance for
Bosnia's stability.
Holbrooke dismissed claims given by Zelen-Karadzic and some former
Bosnian Serb leaders on the deal with Karadzic, saying that this was
their attempt to defame the international community.
(Hina) ms