Radovan Karadzic tried to invoke an immunity agreement with Richard Holbrook to prove that the Hague tribunal has always been a political instrument of the US government, says historian and journalist Neboisja Malic.
“Mr Karadzic has specifically said on several occasions that he fears being killed at the tribunal. [Slobodan] Milosevic is not the only Serb defendant who has died in detention,” Malic points out.
“All of a sudden, Milosevic was found dead in his cell and now Mr Karadzic is trying to avoid that fate. But he also believes he is to be, himself, a surrogate Milosevic at this point because the latter died without a verdict of guilty, which is necessary for the backers of the tribunal to explain their actions in the Balkans in the 1990s, If it was not all the Serbs fault, the official version of history does not hold water,” Malic says. “They have to find him guilty, regardless of the facts and the case – and he is well aware of that.”