The High Representative and EU Special Representative, Miroslav Lajčák, has welcomed the long awaited arrest of Radovan Karadzic, since 1995 indicted by the Hague Tribunal on charges of genocide, crimes against humanity and other war crimes in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

“The news that Radovan Karadzic has been arrested is positive for Bosnia and Herzegovina and for the whole region. This arrest proves that justice reaches everyone. Nobody is untouchable. Although two indictees, Ratko Mladic and Goran Hadzic, still remain at large, the arrest of Karadzic can be viewed as the beginning of the end of the most tragic chapter in Bosnia and Herzegovina’s modern history,” Ambassador Lajčák said.

The High Representative/EU Special Representative said that although justice in the Karadzic case has been delayed it has not been denied. “Karadzic’s continuing liberty has been an affront to justice and a challenge to the domestic and international legal systems, but justice will now take its course – and that is a matter of the greatest political import and respect not just for the people of Bosnia and Herzegovina but for all of us.”

Ambassador Lajčák described Karadzic’s arrest as “a matter of the integrity of the rule of law” and he said it offered “fresh impetus to the region’s long march to postwar recovery and European integration. The officials of the EU already announced that the arrest of Karadzic will have positive consequences concerning the EU integration process of the region.”

The High Representative/EU Special Representative noted that Bosnia and Herzegovina in 2008 is a very different country from the one where Karadzic went to ground in 1996. “The arrest of Radovan Karadzic will help the people of Bosnia and Herzegovina to turn from past to the future and focus on the challenges they face today,” he concluded.