Thursday, Oct. 20, 2011

Radovan Karadzic

The former Bosnian Serb politician on trial in the Hague for war crimes evaded capture from 1996 to 2008. He was accused of causing the deaths of 8,000 refugees and the ethnic cleansing of 30,000 others in the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, the largest mass murder in Europe since World War II. When indicted for genocide, Karadzic went on the lam and became a hero amongst the Bosnian Serb people, who helped him escape capture multiple times during his decade on the run. A tip-off, most likely from U.K. and U.S. intelligence agencies, led to the discovery of Karadzic in a clinic in Belgrade, where he had grown an enormous white beard and ponytail and was posing as specialist in alternative medicine, with a particular interest in "bioenergy," under the name Dragan David Dabic. The disguised Karadzic had once lectured on human quantum energy; presumably he didn't have enough of his own left to escape capture one more time.