Karadzic Arrested

After 10 years on the run, former Bosnian Serb military leader Radovan Karadzic has been arrested. The AP has a few sketchy details:

Mr. Karadzic has been indicted by the U.N. war crimes tribunal for former Yugoslavia for genocide during the 1992-95 Bosnian war. He has been hiding since 1998.

President Boris Tadic's office said in a statement that Mr. Karadzic was arrested "in an action by the Serbian security services."

Mr. Karadzic, who was the leader of ethnic Serbs during the war that erupted with Bosnia's secession from Yugoslavia, is accused of masterminding massacres that the U.N. war crimes tribunal described as "scenes from hell, written on the darkest pages of human history."

He had topped the tribunal's most-wanted list for more than a decade and was said to have resorted to elaborate disguises to elude authorities.

Mr. Karadzic's reported hide-outs included Serbian Orthodox monasteries and refurbished mountain caves in remote eastern Bosnia. Some newspaper reports said he had at times disguised himself as a priest by shaving off his trademark silver mane and donning a brown cassock.

reason on the Balkans. 

Comments

[Douglas Fletcher]

Makes me wonder if Bin Laden isn't in Paris walking around in a dress.

[BG]

I'll drink to that.

[thoreau]

I'm confused: Are we now punishing government officials for initiating aggression?

[MrWhipple]

First Karadzic, next Bush.

(Yeah, like THAT'S ever gonna happen...)

[J sub D]

It disappoints me that he wasn't arrested in Bosnia.

[Mad Max]

"Mr. Karadzic has been indicted by the U.N. war crimes tribunal for former Yugoslavia . . . accused of masterminding massacres that the U.N. war crimes tribunal described as 'scenes from hell, written on the darkest pages of human history.'"

Good to know the judges haven't made up their minds yet.

[mark]

Mad Max - what could you possibly mean? I'm sure that an Israeli settler and French environmentalist, say, would be treated exactly the same way by the UN tribunal if up on identical charges.

[joe]

Oh, give me a break. If the police describe a crime as horrible, that means the defendant can't get a fair trial?

Karadzic is going to get a much fairer trial than anyone being held a Guantanamo, I'll tell you that right now.

[JB]

Aside from KSM and a few others, Karadzic did a lot more damage than most of the dopes in Guantanamo. I don't think the world should be spending $20 million on each of their trials. That's likely what will be spent on his.

If I was him, I would claim that if it was Africa no one would care.

[James Woods]

LOL, talking about War Crimes? How about Dictator Bush? The biggest "War Criminal" of all time and he sits in the White House living large! makes me sick.

JT
http://www.Ultimate-Anonymity.com

[tim]

Does this mean we've turned a corner in Bosnia? Some ring up Gore.

[BG]

Aside from KSM and a few others, Karadzic did a lot more damage than most of the dopes in Guantanamo. I don't think the world should be spending $20 million on each of their trials. That's likely what will be spent on his.

Do you have any specific suggestions for how they can have a fair trial for cheaper?

[joe]

Does this mean we've turned a corner in Bosnia?

The last time anyone took up arms against their neighbors of the government in Bosnia was over a decade ago.

The last time an American was killed there? Never.

[David (not that one)]

Nobody on H&R makes me want to filter comments except for this stupid ultimate anonymity guy. I like trolls. I like people I disagree with (as long as they're rational and can have a civil debate).

Spammers need to just go away.

[Minion of URKOBOLD]

SILLY DAVID(YES, YOU *ARE* THAT ONE).

YOUR PATHETIC ATTEMPTS OF MAKING NICEY-NICE TO THE DREADED, BELOVED URKOBOLD WILL NOT SPARE YOUR TAINT FROM WITHERING AT ANY POINT.

[kwais]

joe | July 22, 2008, 8:01am | #
Does this mean we've turned a corner in Bosnia?

The last time anyone took up arms against their neighbors of the government in Bosnia was over a decade ago.

The last time an American was killed there? Never.

There might also have been no American casualties if we had never gotten involved. And there might have been less Bosnian casualties.

Is this your attempt at saying that democrats do war better than republicans?

[joe]

And there might have been less Bosnian casualties. We were "not involved" for years before we finally took action, and there were plenty of Bosnian casualties. They stopped very, very soon after the airstrikes.

Now, if you're talking about the arms blockade - maybe.

Is this your attempt at saying that democrats do war better than republicans?

No. There are far more important differences between the Bosnia/Kosovo wars and the Afghan/Iraq wars than the party in charge. And George H.W. Bush seemed to be able to "do war" pretty well.

[kwais]

Now, if you're talking about the arms blockade - maybe.

Yeah, I was just following the general libertarian theory of "less government involvement is better, shit sorts itself out better without government"

Of course there are individual cases where that maxim might not prove true. I think it is supposed to prove generally more true than not over time though (and a slight advantage over time is why casino owners have billions).

And as a participant of the US current involvement in Iraq, perhaps I am not one to preach.

[Josh]

Pfft, of course. Pick on the little guy. The rich and powerful can get away with whatever they want. Maybe that's why nobody ever tried Hitler for war crimes.

[David (not that one)]

Re: Minion of URKOBOLD | July 22, 2008, 8:50am | #

"Withering Taint" WBAGNFARB

http://www.Ultimate-Trolldom.com

[Mad Max]

"Oh, give me a break. If the police describe a crime as horrible, that means the defendant can't get a fair trial?

"Karadzic is going to get a much fairer trial than anyone being held a Guantanamo, I'll tell you that right now."

At least Karadzic will get a fairer trial than he would at the hands of someone who can't tell the difference between cops and judges.

[Mad Max]

joe,

I'm not sure what Guantanamo has to do with this discussion, except in your Manichaean, bipolar universe, where only supporters of the Bush administration could *possibly* be against the United Nations.

I wouldn't want to be a Guantanamo prisoner - I wouldn't want to be locked up there on the say-so of some warlord trying to meet quota.

But let us give the devil his due. Both Congress and the Supreme Court have said that Guantanamo prisoners convicted of war crimes have the right to challenge their conviction in a tribunal *other than the tribunal which convicted them.* Those convicted in the UN war crimes tribunal have no such right.

[joe]

Mad Max,

The important difference is not "cops vs judges" but "crime vs defendant." The UN tribunal described the massacre as Sbrenca as horrible. They didn't say a word about this particular defendant being horrible.

I thought this was a rather obvious point, but I can always count on someone like you, can't I?

[Mad Max]

"The important difference is not 'cops vs judges' but 'crime vs defendant.' "

You tried to elide the difference between cops and judges. It was the UN tribunal, not UN cops, which described the crime as horrible.

You have raised a *new* point - that the tribunal has said a crime occurred, but it hasn't said that Karazdickless committed the crime. The question of whether a crime occurred is, of course, one of the key questions in any trial. The court has prejudged this issue, but that's OK, since they only prejudged *part* of the case, not the whole case.

I suppose this is in part inevitable in a system of trial by judge rather than by jury. You only have so many judges, and if a crime has a lot of perpetrators who are tried at different times, then sometimes you need to have the same judge presiding at trials of different perps. Even in such a system, every effort is supposed to be made to find an impartial judge, someone who hasn't previously opined on the case.

Now, I suppose you would be OK if a judge in, say, Texas, decided to prejudge part of a case, so long as he didn't prejudge all of it. Or is this only appropriate for international judges who act without juries?

[BG]

You have raised a *new* point - that the tribunal has said a crime occurred, but it hasn't said that Karazdickless committed the crime. The question of whether a crime occurred is, of course, one of the key questions in any trial. The court has prejudged this issue, but that's OK, since they only prejudged *part* of the case, not the whole case.

I suppose this is in part inevitable in a system of trial by judge rather than by jury. You only have so many judges, and if a crime has a lot of perpetrators who are tried at different times, then sometimes you need to have the same judge presiding at trials of different perps. Even in such a system, every effort is supposed to be made to find an impartial judge, someone who hasn't previously opined on the case.

Now, I suppose you would be OK if a judge in, say, Texas, decided to prejudge part of a case, so long as he didn't prejudge all of it. Or is this only appropriate for international judges who act without juries?

The defendent is free to argue that his actions were as alleged but they do not constitute a crime. But if the event that he is charged in connection with is anything like the releveant events for most Balkans war crimes defendent, that argument would be obviously implausible.

So, if he has any credible defense at all, it will probably be that he wasn't involved with the event in question.

Shortly after Germany's surrender, the allies were already describing the holocaust as a "war crime" and a "crime against humanity". Does that mean that nazi defendents didn't really get a fair trial?

(I pre-emptively deny that I violated Godwin's law, as my point is that declaring something is a crime, when it obviously is, does not preclude the defendant from getting a fair trial.)

[joe]

No, I didn't raise a new point. I restated my original point, which you didn't get the first time.

Now, I suppose you would be OK if a judge in, say, Texas, decided to prejudge part of a case, so long as he didn't prejudge all of it.

If a judge in any state said that a blood-soaked murder scene was "horrible," I would have no problem whatsoever with that judge hearing the case.

That's a nice little bit of sophistry there, "One of the question is a trial is whether a crime occured," but no, when there is no question whether a crime occured, when there is not dispute over the fact of whether some set of murder victims were, in fact, murdered, the question of whether a crime occured is not an important part of the case.

[BG]

Yeah, I was just following the general libertarian theory of "less government involvement is better, shit sorts itself out better without government"

Of course there are individual cases where that maxim might not prove true. I think it is supposed to prove generally more true than not over time though (and a slight advantage over time is why casino owners have billions).

Well, the fighting in Bosnia, as well as the atrocities, was/were conducted by armies associated with governments or armed groups which intended to establish a government and become part of it. The Serb Army of the Republika Srpska, which committed most of the atrocities, intended to be an arm of the government of an independent Republika Srpska.

At any rate, when an armed organization is running around murdering and raping innocent people, that is the type of case where intervention with force (usually by a government) is what will solve the problem. The eventual response of the international community to stop the war crimes can be regarded as an application of this idea.

[Mad Max]

"No, I didn't raise a new point. I restated my original point, which you didn't get the first time."

No, joe, your first point was to compare judges to police. I think there is something of a difference between the two sets of officers. Check under "Separation of powers" in your Cliff's Notes Constitution.

As to your *new* point - this is like a judge saying "this homicide is clearly not self-defense" or "this sex act was clearly rape, not consensual." But they expressed no opinion as to whether a specific defendant did the crime.

As to the obviousness of Kar's guilt - his his guilt may be as obvious as Ernesto Miranda's guilt of rape - perhaps the US Supreme Court should have focused on that "obvious" fact rather on any technical oversight at the trial like failing to read him his rights.

[BG]

As to your *new* point - this is like a judge saying "this homicide is clearly not self-defense" or "this sex act was clearly rape, not consensual." But they expressed no opinion as to whether a specific defendant did the crime.

The World Trade Center atttacks were clearly murder; not acts of self-defnese or legal acts of war.

I guess I can never serve on a jury in a trial of any of the alleged planners of those attacks.