War crimes suspect Hadzic extradited to The Hague
July 22nd, 2011 - 9:47 pm ICT by IANSMoscow, July 22 (IANS/RIA Novosti) Serbian war crimes suspect Goran Hadzic was extradited to The Hague Friday, where he will face a UN war crimes tribunal.
The extradition went ahead after Serbian Justice Minister Snezana Malovic signed an order Friday for Hadzic’s extradition, Serbian B92 TV said.
Hadzic, a wartime leader of Croatia’s Serbs, faces charges at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTU) over crimes against humanity committed during the 1991-95 war in Croatia.
A convoy of jeeps and police cars left the detention unit of the Serbian war crimes court Friday, taking Hadzic to visit his terminally ill mother before he was extradited.
Although according to law the defendant had three days to appeal the decision, Hadzic signed documents declining to do so, his lawyer Toma Fila said.
Hadzic was the ICTY’s most wanted suspect after the arrests of former Bosnian Serb president Radovan Karadzic in 2008 and former Bosnian Serb army chief Ratko Mladic earlier this year.
The Serbian authorities earlier promised a reward of five million euros (over $7 million) for information on Hadzic’s whereabouts.
Hadzic was arrested Wednesday after seven years on the run after being discovered by Serbian agents in the Fruska Gora region, north of Belgrade, not far from his family home.
Serbian media are speculating over where and how Hadzic has been ever since he went on the run after an indictment by the Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia.
Some suggested he had been abroad, citing Russia, Belarus and Romania as possible nations he could have hidden out in.
–IANS/RIA
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