Karadzic’s arrest was one of the main conditions of Serbian progress towards European Union membership and may be enough to secure Serbia closer ties with the EU and possibly the status of membership candidate this year.

Serbian officials said Karadzic was arrested on Monday evening while moving from one Belgrade suburb to another. They showed reporters a photograph of an unrecognisable Karadzic, thin, with a long, white beard, flowing hair and thick glasses.

He was working for a private clinic, posing as a specialist in alternative medicine, said Rasim Ljajic, Serbia’s point man for cooperation with The Hague war crimes tribunal. “He was using false documents under the name of Dragan Dabic,” he said.

His last known address was in New Belgrade, a sprawling suburb of massive tower blocks that can house dozens of flats. “He happily, freely walked around the city,” Serbia’s war crimes prosecutor Vladimir Vukcevic told reporters. “Even the people he rented a flat from were unaware of his identity.”

Celebrations

When the news broke on Monday, people poured in celebration onto the streets of Sarajevo, the Bosnian capital which Karadzic’s troops shelled mercilessly in a 43-month siege during the 1992-95 Bosnian war.

“I called and woke up my whole family,” said Sarajevo resident Fadil Bico as cars honked horns and Bosnian state radio played excerpts of Karadzic’s wartime hate speeches.

EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said his arrest showed Belgrade was cooperating fully with the UN war crimes tribunal. An EU foreign ministers meeting was to discuss closer ties with the new pro-Western government.

Karadzic was indicted in 1995 along with his army commander, General Ratko Mladic, for genocide at Srebrenica, where some 8,000 unarmed Bosnian Muslim males were rounded up and murdered and bulldozed into mass graves.

He is also charged with authorising the shooting of civilians during the Sarajevo siege in which an estimated 11,000 people were killed.

‘Osama of Europe’

Richard Holbrooke, former US Balkan troubleshooter during the wars of the 1990s’ described Karadzic as the Osama bin Laden of Europe, “a real, true architect of mass murder”.

Karadzic went underground more than a year after Holbrooke negotiated the 1995 Dayton accords that ended the war in Bosnia.

His arrest leaves two war crimes suspects still wanted by the Hague tribunal. “The arrest of Radovan Karadzic is confirmation that every criminal will eventually face justice,” said Munira Subasic, head of a Srebrenica widow’s association.

“I hope that people who had to keep quiet because of Karadzic will start revealing the locations of mass graves and let us find the truth about our beloved ones,” she said.

EU members who say Serbia must hand over all war crimes suspects are likely to see the arrest as proof Karadzic’s fellow genocide suspect Mladic can also be seized if Belgrade has the political will to face down hardline nationalists.

The new government is an odd-couple alliance of President Boris Tadic’s pro-Western Democratic Party and the Socialists of the late Slobodan Milosevic, who died in detention at the Hague war crimes prison.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon praised Serbia for taking a “decisive step toward ending impunity” of those indicted for crimes in Balkan conflicts.

Serbian officials said Karadzic had been served with the indictment and his lawyers had three days to reply.  He is then expected to be transferred to The Hague tribunal.

A hero to nationalists

Karadzic is still seen by militant nationalists as a national saviour following the collapse of Yugoslavia. “This is payback to the EU for bringing this new government to power,” said Aleksandar Vucic of the nationalist Radicals, one of Serbia’s strongest parties. “Karadzic is a Serbian hero. There will be a strong backlash.”

ON THE RUN

After 11 years on the run, Karadzic arrested near Belgrade 
Karadzic was living in disguise, working as a doctor 
Sarajevans celebrate 
EU hails capture