A war criminals soft side

last updated 8 January 2015

Belgrade

Radovan Karadzic, the former Bosnian Serb leader wanted for crimes against humanity, published a book of poems this week. Karadzic has evaded capture since the end of the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s, when he ordered the ethnic cleansing operations that killed thousands. Before the wars, he was a psychiatrist and amateur poet, and his literary works have become popular among nationalist Serbs. “It is outrageous that a fugitive and an indictee is free to write and have books published,” said a spokeswoman for the International Criminal Tribunal, which has a warrant out for Karadzic. “Instead of hiding in a pit like Saddam Hussein, he is writing books—you don’t write books from a pit.” The tribunal has criticized Serbia for not doing enough to find and extradite Karadzic.