Radovan Karadzic led the Bosnian Serb political leadership through the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina from 1992 to 1995. He was a founding member of the Serbian Democratic Party and its president from July 1990 to July 1996, the elected President of the Presidency of the Serbian Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina from May 12, 1992, and from December 17, 1992 the sole President of Republika Srpska and Supreme Commander of its armed forces. The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, sitting in The Hague, convicted him on March 24, 2016 of genocide for the events at Srebrenica in July 1995 and of nine further counts of crimes against humanity and violations of the laws or customs of war. It sentenced him to 40 years' imprisonment. On March 20, 2019 the Appeals Chamber of the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals set that sentence aside and imposed life imprisonment.
The verdict was a partial one. Karadzic was found not guilty on count 1 of the indictment, a second charge of genocide that concerned a group of municipalities in 1992, and the prosecution's appeal against that acquittal failed. The convictions rest on four separate joint criminal enterprises that the Trial Chamber found he shared in: an overarching enterprise to remove Bosnian Muslims and Bosnian Croats permanently from territory claimed by the Bosnian Serbs, a campaign of terror against the civilian population of Sarajevo, the taking of United Nations personnel hostage in 1995, and the plan that led to the killings at Srebrenica. He denied all the charges against him and defended himself at trial with the help of a legal adviser.
The tribunal's judgment summary describes Karadzic as a founding member of the Serbian Democratic Party and its president from July 1990 until July 1996. He had worked as a psychiatrist before entering politics, and he rose as the Yugoslav federation broke apart. When the Bosnian Serb leadership set up its own republic inside Bosnia and Herzegovina, he was elected President of its three-member Presidency on May 12, 1992. On December 17, 1992 he became the republic's sole President, now called Republika Srpska, and Supreme Commander of its armed forces, a post he held until July 1996.
In July 1995 the tribunal indicted Karadzic, together with the commander of the Bosnian Serb army and a number of other accused. On November 16, 1995 he and the commander were accused of genocide after the capture of Srebrenica. On July 11, 1996 international arrest warrants were issued for both men, and on July 19, 1996 Karadzic resigned from his public and party offices. The Trial Chamber later treated that resignation as a mitigating factor in sentencing. The commander of the Bosnian Serb army was tried in a separate case before the same tribunal.
An amended indictment was unsealed on October 14, 2002. The operative indictment, filed in 2009, contained eleven counts. Counts 1 and 2 charged genocide, count 3 persecutions, count 4 extermination, counts 5 and 6 murder, count 7 deportation, count 8 inhumane acts (forcible transfer), count 9 terror, count 10 unlawful attacks on civilians and count 11 hostage-taking.
Almost thirteen years passed between the first indictment and the arrest. On July 21, 2008 the tribunal's Prosecutor announced that Karadzic had been arrested in Belgrade, Serbia. The Prosecutor said the day was "very important" for the victims, who had waited for the arrest for over a decade, and added that "nobody is beyond the reach of the law." Serbia's Special War Crimes Court ruled that the conditions for his transfer to The Hague had been met, and on July 30, 2008 he was in the tribunal's custody. The judgment later credited his time in custody from July 21, 2008 against the sentence.
On March 3, 2009 he did not enter a plea, and a plea of not guilty was entered on his behalf. On February 16, 2009 the Trial Chamber had granted in part the prosecution's motion to amend the indictment, and the trial opened on October 26, 2009, with opening statements on October 27 and November 2, 2009.
The prosecution called its first witness on April 13, 2010 and closed its case on May 25, 2012. During that period the Trial Chamber made two site visits, one in Sarajevo on May 17, 2011 and one in and around Srebrenica on June 5, 2012. The defense case ran from October 16, 2012 to May 1, 2014, and closing arguments were heard between September 29 and October 7, 2014. By the end the trial had occupied 499 trial days. The Chamber heard 434 witnesses in court and received the evidence of 152 more in writing, admitted 11,469 exhibits and assembled a record of more than 330,000 pages.
At the close of the prosecution case, Karadzic moved for a judgment of acquittal on all counts. On June 28, 2012 the Trial Chamber dismissed the motion on ten of the eleven counts but entered a judgment of acquittal on count 1, genocide in the municipalities. It found "no evidence, even taken at its highest, which could be capable of supporting a conviction" for that count.
The prosecution appealed, and the Appeals Chamber heard argument on April 17, 2013. On July 11, 2013 it reversed the acquittal, reinstated the charge under count 1 and remanded the matter to the Trial Chamber. It found that the Trial Chamber had erred in concluding that there was no evidence of the underlying acts or of genocidal intent. On intent, it held that statements attributed to Karadzic and other senior Bosnian Serb leaders, together with extensive indirect evidence of systematic, large-scale acts against the targeted groups, could support an inference of genocidal intent. It also rejected his argument that the Chamber should decline to reverse on prudential grounds. The reinstated count covered the period from March to December 1992.
The Trial Chamber delivered its judgment on March 24, 2016, when Karadzic was 70. He was found not guilty on count 1, "genocide", and guilty on every other count. The counts, in the wording of the judgment summary, were: count 2, "genocide;" count 3, "persecution, a crime against humanity;" count 4, "extermination, a crime against humanity;" count 5, "murder, a crime against humanity;" count 6, "murder, a violation of the laws or customs of war;" count 7, "deportation, a crime against humanity;" count 8, "inhumane acts-forcible transfer, a crime against humanity;" count 9, "terror, a violation of the laws or customs of war;" count 10, "unlawful attacks on civilians, a violation of the laws or customs of war;" and count 11, "hostage-taking, a violation of the laws or customs of war." The Chamber imposed a single sentence of 40 years' imprisonment. Because overlapping murder incidents were subsumed under extermination, no separate conviction was entered on count 5 for them. Two judges issued partially dissenting opinions.
The first enterprise ran from October 1991 to November 30, 1995. Its objective, the Chamber found, was to remove Bosnian Muslims and Bosnian Croats permanently from the territory the Bosnian Serbs claimed. Karadzic intended the persecution, deportation and forcible transfer that were its means, and killings were a foreseeable consequence. The summary lists the municipalities involved in three regions: Bijeljina, Bratunac, Brcko, Foca, Rogatica, Sokolac, Visegrad, Vlasenica and Zvornik in eastern Bosnia and Herzegovina; Banja Luka, Bosanski Novi, Kljuc, Prijedor and Sanski Most in the Autonomous Region of Krajina; and Hadzici, Ilidza, Novi Grad, Novo Sarajevo, Pale and Vogosca around Sarajevo. Extermination was established for 26 scheduled killing incidents.
The acquittal on count 1 relates to this enterprise. The Chamber did not find genocide proven in seven of these municipalities: Bratunac, Foca, Kljuc, Prijedor, Sanski Most, Vlasenica and Zvornik.
The second enterprise, from late May 1992 to October 1995, had as its objective the spreading of terror among the civilian population of Sarajevo. The Chamber found Karadzic responsible for murder, unlawful attacks on civilians and terror. It held the Sarajevo Romanija Corps of the Bosnian Serb army responsible for all the scheduled incidents except three, and the summary refers to thousands of civilians wounded and killed over the period. The presiding judge said the siege, which lasted 44 months, could not have happened without his support.
The third enterprise ran from about May 26 to June 19, 1995. Its objective was to take United Nations personnel hostage in order to stop air strikes by NATO. Karadzic took part in it with the army commander and two other senior figures. The indictment alleged that more than 200 United Nations peacekeepers and military observers were held, and all of them had been released by June 18, 1995.
The fourth enterprise concerned Srebrenica. Between July 12 and 13, 1995 about 30,000 Bosnian Muslim women, children and elderly men were transported out of Potocari. On July 13, 1995 between 1,500 and 2,000 Bosnian Muslim men were detained. The Chamber found that what had been a plan to remove the population by force became a plan to kill the able-bodied men and boys, and that Karadzic had agreed to that expanded purpose by 8 p.m. on July 13, 1995. It found at least 5,115 Bosnian Muslim men and boys were killed in connection with the scheduled incidents; it could not establish one further incident beyond reasonable doubt. The presiding judge said Karadzic was the only person in Republika Srpska with the power to intervene and prevent the Bosnian Muslim males from being killed.
For killings before 8 p.m. on July 13 the Chamber did not hold him responsible under the enterprise. He was found responsible for them as a superior, but no separate conviction was entered, because the genocide conviction under the enterprise already covered the conduct.
Notices of appeal were filed on July 22, 2016, and the Appeals Chamber of the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals, the successor to the tribunal, heard the appeals on April 23 and 24, 2018. A member of the bench withdrew on September 27, 2018, and the judgment was given on March 20, 2019.
The Appeals Chamber partly reversed Karadzic's convictions arising from the overarching enterprise, but only to the extent that they rested on certain scheduled incidents; two judges dissented on that point. It dismissed all other grounds of his appeal unanimously and affirmed the remaining convictions. It dismissed the prosecution's appeal against the acquittal on count 1, with one judge dissenting, and it allowed the prosecution's appeal against the sentence. It held that the Trial Chamber "committed a discernible error and abused its discretion" in imposing 40 years, set that sentence aside and imposed life imprisonment, with two judges dissenting on the sentence. The presiding judge said the term of 40 years did not reflect the "sheer scale and systematic cruelty" of the crimes.
The ruling was final in respect of his role at Srebrenica, in Sarajevo and in the municipalities. Karadzic had no further appeal.
The tribunal itself did not hold prisoners after sentence. States that had agreed to enforce its sentences did so, and the United Kingdom had signed such an agreement with the tribunal on March 11, 2004. On May 12, 2021 the President of the Mechanism issued a written order asking the authorities to take all necessary measures to facilitate Karadzic's transfer to the United Kingdom as expeditiously as possible.
Karadzic's lawyers had objected to a transfer to the United Kingdom, arguing that he could face retaliation and would have to be kept in near-solitary conditions. The Mechanism rejected the objections, and his lawyer said that no reasons had been given. He was moved to the United Kingdom in May 2021. In November 2022 the British embassy in Sarajevo stated that he was held in normal conditions and received no special treatment, and that his media access was monitored because contact could cause serious harm to his victims.
The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia was established by the United Nations Security Council, which created it unanimously. By March 2016 it had indicted 161 people, and proceedings against 149 of them had been concluded. Karadzic was among the most senior; the only more senior official tried by the tribunal, Slobodan Milosevic, died before a verdict.
The International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals took over functions that remained when the tribunal closed, including appeals in cases still open and the supervision of sentences. Karadzic's appeal was heard by its Appeals Chamber at its branch in The Hague.
Under the rule on acquittal at the close of the prosecution case, a chamber may enter a judgment of acquittal on a count if there is no evidence capable of supporting a conviction. The Appeals Chamber's ruling of July 11, 2013 applied that test. It found that the evidence, including statements by the Bosnian Serb leaders, was enough at that stage of the case, and that the Trial Chamber had erred in finding otherwise. The charge was then tried to judgment and ended in an acquittal in 2016.
Joint criminal enterprise is the form of responsibility on which the Chamber relied. A participant who shares the common objective can be held responsible for the crimes that fall within it, and the Chamber applied the doctrine to four enterprises, each with its own period and objective. Command responsibility was the alternative ground for the Srebrenica killings before July 13.
The war itself lasted from 1992 to 1995 and left about 100,000 people dead, about 38,000 of them civilians, according to figures cited by Amnesty International in 2016. The High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina said after the appeal judgment that it affirmed individual responsibility rather than collective guilt.
On count 1 the tribunal's final position is that Karadzic is not guilty of genocide in the municipalities. The Trial Chamber did not find genocide established in the seven municipalities it examined, and the Appeals Chamber, by a majority, left that acquittal in place. Karadzic is therefore convicted of genocide only in respect of Srebrenica.
The Appeals Chamber's reversal of part of the overarching convictions, and the dissents on that point and on the sentence, show that members of the Chamber differed on the incidents covered and on whether life was the proper sentence. Two judges of the Trial Chamber also partly dissented in 2016.
After the verdict of 2016 his legal adviser said that Karadzic felt he had been convicted "on inference instead of evidence", and several thousand demonstrators in Belgrade claimed that he had been convicted only because he was a Serb. Karadzic himself had maintained throughout the trial that he was not guilty of any count.
July 1995: ICTY indictment confirmed.
November 16, 1995: accused of genocide after the capture of Srebrenica.
July 11, 1996: international arrest warrants issued.
July 19, 1996: Karadzic resigns from public and party office.
October 14, 2002: amended indictment unsealed.
July 21, 2008: arrest in Belgrade announced; July 30, 2008: in ICTY custody.
March 3, 2009: plea of not guilty entered on his behalf.
October 26, 2009: trial opens.
June 28, 2012: acquittal on count 1 at the close of the prosecution case.
July 11, 2013: Appeals Chamber reverses that acquittal.
May 1, 2014: defense case closes; closing arguments September 29 to October 7, 2014.
March 24, 2016: guilty on counts 2 to 11, not guilty on count 1; 40 years.
April 23 and 24, 2018: appeal hearing.
March 20, 2019: IRMCT Appeals Chamber imposes life imprisonment.
May 12, 2021: order directing his transfer to the United Kingdom; moved in May 2021.
November 2022: held in the United Kingdom.