Radovan Karadzic – the Bosnian Serb political leader convicted over the Srebrenica genocide – is to be transferred to a UK prison to serve the remainder of his sentence.
In a statement, Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said: “Radovan Karadzic is one of the few people to have been found guilty of genocide.
“He was responsible for the massacre of men, women and children at the Srebrenica genocide and helped prosecute the siege of Sarajevo with its remorseless attacks on civilians.
“We should take pride in the fact that, from UK support to secure his arrest, to the prison cell he now faces, Britain has supported the 30 year pursuit of justice for these heinous crimes.”
The 75-year-old was found guilty of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity in March 2016.
And in 2019, UN appeals judges increased his sentence from 40 years to life imprisonment.
The charges related to the 1992-1995 conflict, which claimed the lives of more than 100,000 people and displaced 2.2 million others.
The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia found Karadzic to be responsible for orchestrating one of the worst atrocities on European soil since the Second World War, including the 1995 massacre of almost 8,000 Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica, and a campaign of ethnic cleansing that drove Croats and Muslims out of Serb-claimed areas of Bosnia.
The first indictment against Karadzic was announced in 1995, prompting an international arrest warrant to be issued the following year.
In hiding for over a decade after the war, in 2008 he was eventually caught by Serbian authorities in Belgrade.
Karadzic refused to enter a plea in response to the charges, so a plea of not guilty was entered on his behalf.
After his conviction, he was held at court’s detention centre in The Hague but will now be moved to the UK.
Last summer marked the 25th anniversary of the Srebrenica massacre.