Karadzic's family still not allowed travel

Jul 25, 2008, 8:36 GMT

Sarajevo - International administrator in Bosnia Miroslav Lajcak said he may consider returning travel documents to the Karadzic family once he is sure this would not contribute to the support network for suspected war criminals still at large, Bosnian media reported Friday.

After the top Bosnian Serb war crimes suspect Radovan Karadzic was arrested late Monday in Belgrade, his wife and daughter called on the international community's high representative in Bosnia to give them back their travel documents so they can visit Karadzic while he is still in Belgrade.

In January Lajcak ordered the confiscation of the documents under the suspicion that the family were involved in the support network for war crimes suspects still at large.

Stressing that they don't have enough money to travel to The Hague once Karadzic is transported to the UN war crimes tribunal there, his family asked for permission to visit him in Belgrade.

Lajcak told a local TV station in Bosnia that Karadzic's family 'will have many opportunities to see their father in the years to come, which is not the case for the victims of the massacre in Srebrenica and in many other places.'

He also commented on the statement of the Bosnian Serb Prime Minister Milorad Dodik, who said the Bosnian Serb government is willing to support Karadzic's family financially.

'That sounds like needless, cheap pre-elections rhetoric,' said Lajcak.

Lajcak's Principal Deputy Raffi Gregorian warned that the motives behind Dodik's offer to help the Karadzics were questionable.

He said Bosnia's institutions should investigate how it was possible for members of the Karadzic family to live for years without any official income.

Serbian authorities arrested Radovan Karadzic in Belgrade late Monday.

The Hague-based International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) indicted Karadzic for war crimes, genocide, crimes against humanity and severe breaches of the Geneva Conventions during the 1992-95 war in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Karadzic was hiding from justice for nearly 13 years before he was arrested. He had been using a false identity and working in a private clinic in Belgrade as a doctor of alternative medicine.