By Polly Johnson
Senior Desk Officer, Europe
BELGRADE, Serbia – Goran Hadzic, the last Serbian war crimes fugitive, was arrested Wednesday after seven years on the run. Serbian secret police arrested him in a forest north of Belgrade and close to his family home.
Hadzic, now 53, faces fourteen counts of crimes against humanity and war crimes and was indicted in 2004 for his role in the wars following the break-up of Yugoslavia in the early 1990s. He has been accused of ethnic cleansing that led to the killings of hundreds of Croats and other non-Serbs and the deportations of tens of thousands. Specifically, he was responsible for the massacre of nearly three hundred men in Vukovar in 1991 and for the deportation of twenty thousand people from the town after it was captured.
Serbian President Boris Tadic called a news conference to announce Hadzic’s arrest, proclaiming, “With this, Serbia has now concluded its most difficult chapter in the cooperation with The Hague tribunal.”
Hadzic was the last fugitive of the 161 people indicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY).
The arrest is significant for Serbia and comes two months after the arrest of General Ratko Mladic, the former commander of the Bosnian Serb army who is currently awaiting trial in The Hague. Mladic was responsible for the 1995 Srebrenica massacre that left more than eight thousand Bosnians dead.
The European Union (EU) welcomed Hadzic’s arrest, noting that the arrest has paved the way for Serbia’s entry into the EU.
“This arrest sends a positive signal to the European Union and to Serbia’s neighbors, but most of all on the rule of law in Serbia itself,” EU leaders said in a joint statement.
The EU will present a progress report on Serbia, which is expected to show that Serbia has met its candidacy requirements. The process takes several years.
ICTY prosecutor Serge Brammertz said of the arrest, “Hadzic’s transfer into the Tribunal’s custody is a long awaited development for the victims of the crimes charged against him. It is also an important milestone in the Tribunal’s history. Eighteen years after the Tribunal’s creation, we can now say that no indicted person has successfully evaded the Tribunal’s judicial process. This is a precedent of enduring significance, not only for this Tribunal, but also for international criminal justice more generally.”
For more information, please see:
BBC – Serbia holds Croatia war crimes suspect Goran Hadzic – 20 July 2011
Belfast Telegraph – War crimes arrest could help EU bid – 20 July 2011
CNN – Last Yugoslav war crimes suspect at large is captured – 20 July 2011
Huffington Post – Goran Hadzic, Last Balkan War Crimes Fugitive, Arrested In Serbia – 20 July 2011
New York Times – Serbia Arrests Last War Crimes Fugitive – 20 July 2011
Telegraph – War crimes suspect Goran Hadzic finally captured after investigation into stolen Modigliani painting – 20 July 2011
