Karadzic arrest revives Bosnian hope for justice

updated 10:19 p.m. ET July 26, 2008

THE HAGUE, Netherlands - Sabaheta Fejzic felt cheated when Slobodan Milosevic, on trial for Balkan atrocities, died in his cell before his judges could reach a verdict.

Instead of delivering quick justice, the trial at the U.N. war crimes tribunal in The Hague had dragged on for more than four years before the ousted Serbian president suffered a heart attack on March 11, 2006.

Fejzic's husband and only child, a 16-year-old son, were among 8,000 Muslim men and boys murdered by Serb forces in and around the Bosnian town of Srebrenica in July 1995. The arrest last week of Radovan Karadzic, the former Bosnian Serb leader, offers her the hope that at least one of the alleged architects of Europe's worst atrocities since World War II will finally meet justice.

"I, as a victim, appeal to the Hague Tribunal to issue a verdict as soon as possible because we are afraid of another Milosevic situation — that his life is shorter than his trial," she told The Associated Press in Sarajevo. "May he (Karadzic) receive a lifelong prison term and may he live long and be healthy."

Karadzic's capture may help change perceptions of the tribunal among those who suffered under him and his military commander Gen. Ratko Mladic, said Diane Orentlicher of the Open Society Justice Initiative, a group that promotes law reform and human rights.

Crimes against humanity
For Bosnians, all the court's actions over 15 years "were in the shadow of Karadzic and Mladic — meaning as long as those two people had escaped justice almost nothing else the tribunal had accomplished could take away what they had suffered," said Orentlicher, the group's general counsel.

The court has convicted dozens of war criminals and pronounced the Srebrenica massacre a genocide. It also has established crucial jurisprudence for other international courts.

But critics say Milosevic's trial was meandering, unfocused, and gave the defendant a political platform.

Richard Dicker, director of the International Justice program at New York-based Human Rights Watch, said prosecutors, judges and Milosevic himself share blame for the case dragging on.

"I think the office of the prosecutor erred in going forward with a trial that involved 66 counts of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. That is an enormous amount of material to plead and prove in court," he said.

MORE FROM EUROPE

Europe Section Front

U.K. bails out three major banks U.S. space tourist blasts off Writers protest 42-day detentions Conservatives ahead in Lithuania vote Turkey's military attacks rebels in Iraq Austrian politician Haider dies in car crash Italy: Raid on mafia nets actor who played boss Quake kills 12 in Russia's North Caucasus Europe Section Front   Add Europe headlines to your news reader: