"SARAJEVO: The Balkans’ top war crimes fugitive Radovan Karadzic remains at large due to a lack of international political will and may never be arrested, a UN war crimes court prosecutor told a Sarajevo-based newspaper on Monday.
"There is nothing that would give me the reason to believe that (Karadzic) will be arrested," Graham Blewitt, a deputy to UN tribunal chief prosecutor Carla Del Ponte said in an interview with the Dnevni Avaz daily. Asked whether the Bosnian Serb wartime leader could remain at large until the end of his life, Blewitt replied: "Possibly."
Karadzic has been charged by the UN court in The Hague for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity, in particular for the 1995 massacre of some 7,000 Bosnian Muslims in Srebrenica and the 44-month siege of the city of Sarajevo. He is believed to be hiding in the eastern part of the Serb-run part of Bosnia, where he enjoys support among locals who have helped him evade several arrest attempts by NATO-led peacekeepers.
"The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) has constantly been told that there is a political will from the West to arrest Karadzic, but I must say that I do not believe in that," Blewitt said.
Karadzic was indicted by the UN tribunal more than eight years ago. His wartime military chief Ratko Mladic, is also on the run from the war crimes court. Del Ponte and other ICTY officials have repeatedly said that the tribunal would not close its doors before having Karadzic on trial.
