Karadzic sentence increased to life as appeal fails
RADOVAN KARADŽIĆ, the former Bosnian Serb political leader, was sentenced to life in prison yesterday after a UN court rejected his appeal and increased his original 40-year jail term.
Karadžić, 73, was found guilty of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes by a UN tribunal in The Hague in 2016.
But after hearing his appeal, in which he claimed that the persecution and expulsion of Croats and Muslims was a myth, the UN court ruled that the original sentence was too light.
Vagn Joensen, the presiding judge, said a heavier sentence was justified given the “sheer scale and systematic cruelty” of the crimes perpetrated by Karadžić, a former psychiatrist who became president of the Bosnian Serb breakaway state, Republika Srpska.
The original sentence underestimated “the extraordinary gravity of Karadžić’s responsibility and his integral participation in the most egregious of crimes,” Judge Joensen said.
Karadžić orchestrated the Srebrenica massacre of 1995, in which Bosnian Serb soldiers killed nearly 8,000 Muslim men and boys in what was supposed to be a “safe area” protected by Dutch peacekeeping forces. It was the worst atrocity in Europe since the end of the Second World War.
Karadžić was also responsible for the three-year siege of Sarajevo, in which an estimated 10,000 civilians died.
He barely reacted as the sentence was read out in court, but survivors of the war erupted into applause and hugged each other.
Serge Brammertz, the prosecutor who worked for a decade to convict Karadžić, welcomed the ruling.
He said it should prove even to Karadžić’s diehard supporters in Bosnia that he was no hero.
“This trial has proven the opposite,” he said. “Karadžić will be remembered by history as a war criminal responsible for horrific human suffering.”
Gen Ratko Mladić, Karadžić’s wartime military commander, is also awaiting an appeal judgment on his genocide and war crimes conviction, which earned him a life sentence.
After the war, Karadžić remained at large for years, his whereabouts a mystery to international authorities.
He was eventually discovered, disguised as a New-age therapist, and arrested in 2008.
The fact that he will spend the rest of his life in jail is cold comfort for many survivors and the relatives of victims.
“Considering what he’s done, even if he had a thousand lives, and each one of those thousand lives was taken away from him, it would be not enough for the victims,” said Munira Subasic of the Mothers of Srebrenica group.
“How can I be happy? My son was killed by Mladić.”