Serb's fugitive life had mistress, bogus family
A lawyer for the former Bosnian Serb leader — who sported a bushy white beard and long gray hair when he was captured Monday — said he had a shave and a haircut at his request.
"He looks like new, exactly the same, only 14 years older," said the lawyer, Sveta Vujacic.
Karadzic — arrested on U.N. genocide charges after nearly a decade on the run — had a girlfriend he presented as an associate at the alternative medicine clinic he owned, said Zoran Pavlovic, hired by Karadzic to set up a Web site.
Pavlovic also told The Associated Press he visited Karadzic's apartment in New Belgrade and saw a framed photograph of four boys — all dressed in yellow L.A. Lakers T-shirts — who Karadzic said were grandsons living in America. But that was a lie.
Misko Kovijanic, who owns the bar in Karadzic's neighborhood, said Karadzic was a regular who liked to sip red wine in the tavern decorated with photos of himself and fellow war crimes fugitive Gen. Ratko Maldic.
Karadzic will be handed over to the U.N. war crimes tribunal sometime in the next week, officials said, and his lawyer said he intends to defend himself there just like his mentor, former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic.
Bruno Vekaric, spokesman for Serbia's war crimes prosecutor, said Karadzic's extradition "could be Monday or Tuesday — but it could be earlier, too."
"We cannot say precisely when Karadzic will be sent to The Hague tribunal," he said Wednesday.
Vujacic, Karadzic's lawyer, said he will resist extradition. He also said Karadzic intends to defend himself during his upcoming trial at the U.N. tribunal, with the help of a team of legal advisers, just like Milosevic did. Milosevic died in 2006 while on trial in The Hague.
"He can't wait to appear before the court," Vujacic told reporters. "He will have a legal team that will help him, but he will defend himself," he added.
"He is telling me that he will prove his innocence by truth and that he is proud of what he had done and that he had been saving the Serb people from slaughter by Muslims and Croats," Vujacic said.
A fiercely proud Serb nationalist, Karadzic would be expected to portray his people as historic victims of their ethnic rivals. It is a line of defense that Milosevic regularly employed. Milosevic, acting as his own attorney, blended outbursts of nationalist rhetoric with hectoring of witnesses and prosecutors and analysts said they expect much the same from Karadzic.
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