Who Is Radovan Karadžić

Radovan Karadžić is a Bosnian Serb psychiatrist, poet, and politician, known above all as the first president of the self-declared Republika Srpska during the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina from 1992 to 1995. Born on June 19, 1945, in the village of Petnjica near Šavnik, Montenegro, Karadžić built his career in Sarajevo, where he earned his medical degree and worked as a psychiatrist before entering politics in the late 1980s. As president of the Serb Democratic Party and later president of Republika Srpska, Radovan Karadžić, according to the final judgment of the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals (successor to the ICTY), bore leading responsibility for crimes committed during the Bosnian War, including the genocide against the Bosniak population of Srebrenica in 1995. After the war, he spent more than twelve years as a fugitive, hiding under a false identity, until his arrest in Belgrade in 2008. He is currently serving a life sentence in the United Kingdom.

Origins and Early Life

Radovan Karadžić was born into a rural family in Petnjica, a mountainous area near Šavnik, at the foot of the Durmitor massif, then part of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. His father, Vuko Karadžić, was a shoemaker who fought with the Chetnik movement during World War II and, as a result, spent most of Radovan's childhood in prison. His mother, Jovanka Karadžić (née Jakić), came from a rural family in northern Montenegro; the couple married in 1943.In the 1950s, the Karadžić family moved from Petnjica first to Šavnik and then to Nikšić, where young Radovan completed primary school. He grew up in modest circumstances, and according to some accounts, spent much of his time exploring the surrounding mountains and gathering medicinal herbs — an interest later linked to his fascination with alternative medicine.

Education

In 1960, at the age of sixteen, Radovan Karadžić moved to Sarajevo and enrolled in the Secondary Medical School. He continued his studies at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Sarajevo, graduating in 1971 and subsequently specializing in psychiatry, with a particular focus on neuroses and depressive disorders, as well as group therapy.He completed part of his education in the United States, where, according to available sources, he studied psychotherapy and American poetry at Columbia University in New York — an interest that would later shape his literary work. During his student years in Sarajevo, Karadžić was also involved in journalism, serving as editor of the student newspaper "Ponoćnik" and as a member of the League of Communists. In June 1968, during the wave of student protests across Yugoslavia, he became known for delivering fiery speeches from the roof of the Faculty of Philosophy in Sarajevo.

Career as a Psychiatrist and Poet

After completing his studies, Radovan Karadžić took a position at Sarajevo's Koševo Hospital, at the "Dr. Neđo Zec" clinic, working in psychiatry. He also served for a time as psychiatrist for the football club FK Sarajevo. In the early 1980s, he moved to Belgrade, working at the Voždovac health center and serving as psychologist for the footballers of Red Star Belgrade, before returning to Sarajevo shortly afterward.On November 1, 1984, Karadžić was arrested on suspicion of financial fraud related to the embezzlement of funds intended for a housing cooperative, allegedly used instead to build a weekend house on Pale. He spent roughly eleven months in pre-trial detention, sharing a cell, among others, with Momčilo Krajišnik, who — like Karadžić — would later be convicted by the Hague Tribunal.Alongside his medical career, Karadžić also wrote poetry, publishing several collections, including "Ludo koplje" (1968), "Pamtivek" (1971), "Ima čuda, nema čuda," and "Crna bajka" (1990), for which he received the "Staze detinjstva" literary award. He continued writing poetry even during his years as a fugitive, publishing collections such as "Od ludog koplja do crne bajke" (2002) and "Ratna pisma" (2004).

Entry into Politics and the Founding of the SDS

In the late 1980s, amid the breakup of Yugoslavia and rising nationalist movements across the country, Radovan Karadžić turned to politics. In July 1990, in Sarajevo, he took part in founding the Serb Democratic Party (SDS), a party representing Serb interests in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and became its first president.As the political crisis in Bosnia and Herzegovina deepened, with the republic moving toward independence from Yugoslavia, Karadžić and the SDS opposed that step, advocating instead for Bosnian Serbs to remain within a common state with Serbia and Montenegro. During this period, he worked closely with the military leadership, particularly General Ratko Mladić, and with the backing of then-Serbian president Slobodan Milošević, whose political and military support played a significant role in the events that followed.

President of Republika Srpska and the Bosnian War

When Bosnia and Herzegovina declared independence from Yugoslavia in April 1992, Bosnian Serbs, under Karadžić's leadership, formed their own entity — Republika Srpska. Radovan Karadžić was elected chairman of its presidency and subsequently president of Republika Srpska, a position he held from 1992 to 1996.The war in Bosnia and Herzegovina, which lasted from 1992 to 1995, brought devastation, mass displacement, and the loss of tens of thousands of lives. According to the Hague Tribunal's final judgment, Bosnian Serb forces conducted a campaign of ethnic cleansing against non-Serb populations in territories claimed by Republika Srpska during the war. The nearly 44-month siege of Sarajevo had especially severe consequences, subjecting the city's civilians to daily shelling and sniper fire.The gravest of the crimes for which Karadžić was held responsible was the Srebrenica genocide in July 1995, when Bosnian Serb forces, after overrunning the UN-protected enclave, killed more than 8,000 Bosniak men and boys. The court found that Karadžić, as supreme commander of the Army of Republika Srpska, played a decisive role in planning and carrying out these crimes.

Indictment and Years as a Fugitive

The Hague Tribunal issued its first indictment against Karadžić and Mladić on July 25, 1995, containing 16 counts, while a second indictment, specifically addressing the Srebrenica crimes, was issued on November 16 of the same year and contained 20 counts. After signing the Dayton Peace Agreement under international pressure, which ended the war, Karadžić was forced to resign as president of Republika Srpska and leader of the SDS in 1996, withdrawing from public life.More than twelve years as a fugitive followed — first in Bosnia and Herzegovina, then in Serbia. Mounting pressure from international security forces on his family, including the detention of his son Aleksandar (Saša) in Pale in July 2005, led his wife Ljiljana to publicly call on Radovan, in an Associated Press interview in late July 2005, to surrender to the Hague Tribunal. He did not surrender at that time, however, continuing his flight under an altered identity instead.

Arrest and the Identity of "Dr. Dragan Dabić"

While in hiding, Karadžić assumed the false identity of "Dr. Dragan David Dabić," a self-proclaimed expert in alternative medicine and energy healing. Under this name, he lived in Belgrade, mostly in the New Belgrade district, worked at a private clinic, gave lectures on "energy from the other side," wrote for the magazine "Zdrav život," and occasionally spent time in Vienna. He completely transformed his physical appearance, growing a long beard and hair, which allowed him to go unrecognized for years despite moving relatively freely in public.Radovan Karadžić was arrested on July 21, 2008, in Belgrade, while traveling on public transport, after Serbia's Security Information Agency (BIA) identified and located him. At the time of his arrest, he attempted to deny his identity, insisting he was indeed Dragan Dabić, but the security services already possessed conclusive evidence. He was extradited to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague shortly thereafter.

Trial Before the Hague Tribunal and the Verdict

Radovan Karadžić's trial before the Hague Tribunal began in 2009. He chose to represent himself without defense counsel throughout the proceedings, consistently denying personal responsibility for the alleged crimes despite the extensive body of evidence presented by the prosecution.The trial chamber delivered its first-instance verdict on March 24, 2016: Karadžić was found guilty on ten of eleven counts of the indictment, including genocide against Bosniaks in Srebrenica, crimes against humanity, and war crimes, and was sentenced to 40 years in prison. The court acquitted him, however, of genocide charges related to a series of municipalities across Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1992.Following the appeals process, the Appeals Chamber of the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals upheld the key findings of the first-instance judgment on March 20, 2019, and revised the sentence, convicting Radovan Karadžić to life imprisonment. The court confirmed that Karadžić played a leading role in several joint criminal enterprises aimed at the forcible and permanent removal of non-Serb populations from territories controlled by Republika Srpska. Radovan Karadžić thereby became one of the few individuals in the world to be finally convicted of the crime of genocide.Following the verdict, Karadžić was transferred from the detention unit in The Hague to a prison in the United Kingdom, where he has been serving his life sentence since 2021.

Personal Life

After his second year of medical studies, Radovan Karadžić married his fellow student Ljiljana Zelen. The couple had a daughter, Sonja, in 1967, who later pursued a political career in Republika Srpska and publicly defended her father during his trial. Six years after their daughter, they had a son, Aleksandar (Saša) Karadžić.Before the war, the family lived in Sarajevo, near the Second Gymnasium. According to some of Karadžić's close acquaintances, his wife Ljiljana had considerable influence on him throughout his career. During his years in hiding as Dragan Dabić, the family faced constant pressure from security services, including the temporary detention of his son Aleksandar in 2005.

Fun Facts

• Before the war, Radovan Karadžić was known as a psychiatrist who, among other things, studied the psychoanalytic interpretation of folk poetry.
• While a fugitive, under the name Dragan Dabić, he published several texts and books and regularly appeared in the media as an alternative medicine expert, without being recognized by the public.
• He received the "Staze detinjstva" award for his poetry collection "Crna bajka."
• Western media occasionally referred to him by the nickname "Butcher of Bosnia."
• Momčilo Krajišnik, with whom he shared a cell during his detention in 1984, was later himself convicted by the Hague Tribunal and, like Karadžić, served his sentence in the United Kingdom.

Awards and Recognition

Before the war, Radovan Karadžić received the "Staze detinjstva" literary award for his poetry collection "Crna bajka." Following the war and his final conviction for genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes, Karadžić received no public honors or awards, and his name in the international arena is primarily associated with the Hague Tribunal's judgment rather than with achievements from the earlier part of his career.

Legacy and Influence

Radovan Karadžić's legacy is deeply divided and depends heavily on perspective. For international justice and for the families of victims of the Bosnian War, his name symbolizes one of the gravest crimes committed in Europe since World War II — the Srebrenica genocide and the siege of Sarajevo. The Hague Tribunal's judgment against Karadžić is considered one of the most significant in the history of international criminal law, as it marked the first time a former head of state was finally convicted of genocide.At the same time, in parts of Republika Srpska and among segments of Serbian public opinion, Karadžić continues to be viewed differently, reflecting the depth of divisions that remain a legacy of the Bosnian War. The Karadžić case continues to be studied in the context of international humanitarian law, the process of confronting the past in the Balkans, and regional reconciliation.

Biography — Frequently Asked Questions

When was Radovan Karadžić born?

Radovan Karadžić was born on June 19, 1945, in the village of Petnjica, Šavnik municipality, Montenegro.

Is Radovan Karadžić alive?

Yes, Radovan Karadžić is alive and is serving a life sentence in the United Kingdom.

What was Radovan Karadžić convicted of?

Radovan Karadžić was finally convicted of genocide in Srebrenica, crimes against humanity, and war crimes committed during the Bosnian War from 1992 to 1995, including the siege of Sarajevo.

How long was Radovan Karadžić a fugitive?

Karadžić was a fugitive from 1996 until July 2008 — more than twelve years, much of which he spent hiding under a false identity in Belgrade.

Under what name did Karadžić hide?

He hid under the name "Dr. Dragan David Dabić," presenting himself as an alternative medicine expert.

Where was Radovan Karadžić arrested?

He was arrested on July 21, 2008, in Belgrade, while traveling on public transport.

What was the original sentence, and what was the final one?

He was originally sentenced to 40 years in prison in 2016; the Appeals Chamber increased the sentence to life imprisonment in 2019.

Where does Radovan Karadžić serve his sentence?

Since 2021, he has been serving his life sentence in the United Kingdom, having been transferred from the detention unit in The Hague.

Was Radovan Karadžić president of Republika Srpska?

Yes, he was the first president of Republika Srpska, a position he held from 1992 to 1996.

What did Radovan Karadžić do before the war?

Before entering politics, he worked as a psychiatrist in Sarajevo and Belgrade and also wrote poetry.

Conclusion

Radovan Karadžić moved from being a psychiatrist and poet in Sarajevo to becoming president of Republika Srpska and one of the central figures of the Bosnian War. His political career, marked by the siege of Sarajevo and the Srebrenica genocide, ended with more than a decade as a fugitive under a false identity, his arrest in 2008, and his final conviction and sentencing to life imprisonment in 2019 for genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. The case of Radovan Karadžić remains one of the most significant in the history of international criminal law and stands as a symbol of one of the darkest chapters of recent European history.