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Karadzic Hiding In French Bosnia Zone
MOSTAR, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Jan 31 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Reports say that former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, wanted by an international war crimes tribunal, is hiding in a part of Bosnia patrolled by French peacekeepers, a spokesman for the NATO-led force in the country said on Wednesday.
NATO-led Stabilization Force (SFOR) spokesman Joerg Lehmann was reported as saying that peacekeepers knew Karadzic was in the area and that they had heard press reports that his mother was sick in Montenegro.
"We know about the illness of his mother. So far we have deployed several means to cover his movement," the spokesman said.
He added that SFOR was devoting "a lot of means" to seek out Karadzic.
The former leader is an ultra-nationalist and vocal opponent of international peace plans for Bosnia. Karadzic has been indicted for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), and is blamed for the massacre of some 7,000 Muslim civilians in the town of Srebrenica.
He was also charged in July 24, 1995, for the siege of Sarajevo and holding U.N. peacekeeping soldiers hostages.
French peacekeepers control the southeast zone in Bosnia, between the cities of Mostar, Sarajevo and Gorazde.
There have been several press reports concerning Karadzic's whereabouts, but U.N. troops have been unable to act on the information.
The New York Times has previously said he lives in Pale House - a large house on a mountainside - and that he reportedly owns a gas station called "Sincop" in Banja Luka. The man who runs it for him is named Slavko Roguljic. Karadzic is also said to be building a house in Koljani village near Banja Luka.
Some Western news agencies have said that he actually lived very close to U.N. troops stationed in the area. Both the Associated Press and Agence France Presse have stated that Karadzic lived less than a kilometer away from SFOR troops, describing him as "a creature of habit."
U.N. sources say Karadzic travels regularly between his home and his office (the Industry of Vehicles in Famos) in a limousine.
The signing of the Dayton Agreement in November 1995 marked the end of three years of bitter civil war in Bosnia and Herzegovina, a former constituent republic of Yugoslavia.
The agreement established Bosnia as a dual state of a Muslim/Croat federation and the Bosnian Serb Republika Srpska, and created a multi-ethnic parliamentary democracy.
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