Former President of the Republika Srpska Radovan Karadzic, who was convicted the day before at the International Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia and sentenced to life imprisonment, conveyed an open message through a lawyer Marko Sladojevic. The leader of the Bosnian Serbs called the verdict “revenge” for the existence of the Republika Srpska.
“The Serbian people and I have already won: the Republika Srpska has been created. My sacrifice is smaller than many others. The Republika Srpska is built from thousands of young children’s lives. The biggest sacrifices were given to mothers whose sons, often the only ones, gave their lives for the freedom of the Serbian people. They are the real victims. And the revenge of The Hague to me, the old man, does not mean anything. We didn’t give up when it was much harder. And now I will not stop fighting for the truth about this war, in which all three nations suffered,” Karadzic commented on the ICTY’s decision.
On the eve of this, the Appeals Chamber sentenced the former leader of the Republika Srpska Radovan Karadzic to life imprisonment. The previous sentence, 40 years, was called too soft.
Obviously, this tightening has no real meaning for the 73-year-old convicted Serb, and the sentence is symbolic and ideological. According to Serbian experts, Western countries are trying to accuse the Serbs of fomenting a war in the Balkans in order to justify their post-factum with the intervention of contradictions and subsequent military confrontation.