Karadzic working as alternative doctor when captured
Updated
The former Bosnian Serb leader, Radovan Karadzic, was one of the world's most wanted men but now it's been revealed he was living and working under the noses of his pursuers in Belgrade.
Karadzic lived in the city, working for more than a year as an alternative medicine practitioner.
Presenter: Rafael Epstein
Speakers: Luka Karadzic, brother of former Bosnian Serb leader, Radovan Karadzic
RAFAEL EPSTEIN: As Serbs sat down for dinner in the nation they believe is persecuted by the West, there were astonishing pictures were on their evening TV news bulletins.
(SERBIAN TELEVISION NEWS PLAYS)
RAFAEL EPSTEIN: There was Radovan Karadzic, looking like a hippy Father Christmas, with flowing long white hair and beard, all tied up with a top knot on his head.
Other pictures showed the man who coined the phrase 'ethnic cleansing', sitting placidly at lecture on healthcare; he'd been posing as Dr Dragan Davic, even writing columns in a healthcare magazine, in the same town as international police and diplomats.
Likely to be the first European leader convicted of genocide, he was found after the collapse of the network of criminals, former spies and ultra nationalists who'd protected him for so long. His brother Luka Karadzic, had just finished visiting him in prison, and came outside to speak to journalists.
LUKA KARADZIC: He was arrested on Friday around 9pm in a bus in suburban Belgrade. Later on, they took them in the room, three by three metres where he was for three days.
RAFAEL EPSTEIN: And he's optimistic that he will be; that he will get justice?
LUKA KARADZIC: We talk for an hour, he's an optimist, he's much stronger than me, he give me a hug and that everything will be OK and that we have to stay together.
RAFAEL EPSTEIN: The fact that footage has emerged of Karadzic in Belgrade only recently, implies some in power knew exactly where he was and the new pro-Western government, in power for only weeks, has managed to persuade those in the know to come forward, or at least allow a newly overhauled Serbian intelligence service to finally get the man who's embarrassed the West for more than a decade by staying on the run.
LUKA KARADZIC: We were talking about family because he didn't see his family for a long, long time. He was, he is full of optimism and he is thinking that everything will be going well.
RAFAEL EPSTEIN: How long since you've seen him?
LUKA KARADZIC: I'm telling to all media that it was at the end of '98, but nobody believes me and I can tell you that nobody from the relatives and associates, nobody was knowing that he is in Belgrade because that will jeopardise him. Because all the family, we were under the constant surveillance and we were obviously, we were threat for him and his security.
RAFAEL EPSTEIN: And fair trial, do you think he'll get a fair trial?
LUKA KARADZIC: I think that he will not have a fair trial if he has a trial in Hague, but trial in Belgrade could have a chance to have a fair trial.
