BELGRADE, March 21./TASS/. Former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic has labelled The Hague tribunal’s decision as "futile revenge" to increase his sentence to life imprisonment over his participation in the armed conflict in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1992-1995.
"This is futile revenge by The Hague tribunal against me, an old man, who cannot do anything. We did not give up in tougher times and we won’t give up now, I will never stop fighting for the truth about our just cause in the war, which had been imposed on us and where all three nations (Serbs, Croats and Bosnian Muslims) suffered. In any war, especially a civil one, crimes were committed, which our country condemned and investigated if it knew about them. That’s why at anytime and anywhere we will preserve our dignity, we won’t hate others and will proudly keep what is above all of us, Republika Srpska," Karadzic said in his address to the Serbs, which was read out loud by one of his lawyers Marco Sladojevic.
The former Bosnian Serb leader highlighted that against all the odds, the Serbs won a victory, meaning the creation of their own republic in Bosnia and Herzegovina. "The Serbs and I, together we were victorious: Republika Srpska was established and the Serbian people are free in their own country. The sacrifice that I make is smaller than many others - many thousands of young men built Republika Srpska sacrificing their own lives and many of them are disabled veterans. The greatest sacrifice was made by the mothers, whose sons, often the only children in the family, gave their lives for the freedom of the Serbs. This is a genuine sacrifice," Karadzic stressed.
The International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals on Wednesday increased the sentence for Karadzic, 73, from 40 years behind bars to life imprisonment. Karadzic, who had absconded from justice for 13 years, was arrested by Serbia’s intelligence services in the suburbs of Belgrade in July 2008. The trial started in the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) on October 26, 2009. In March 2016, Karadzic was sentenced to 40 years in prison on 10 of 11 criminal counts, including the Srebrenica massacre.
In April 2018, appeal hearings on Karadzic’s case were held in The Hague, during which the prosecutors demanded that the Bosnian Serb leader be sentenced to life imprisonment, while the defense team asked the judges to review the case or acquit the politician.