Wednesday, August 6, 2008

Karadzic and Saddam: The difference

And so, after thirteen long years of hunting, Radovan Karadzic has been captured and transferred to The Hague where he will stand trial on the charges of genocide. Karadzic went into hiding by drawing upon a false identity of Dr. Dragan Dabic, with a big hairy beard. A scenario much similar to the tale of the Middle East villain, Saddam Hussein, yet the disparity is drastic.

The invasion of Iraq by the US troops led to the capture of Saddam. He was then handed over to a local court in Iraq to be tried for his part of crimes where there were dim chances of a fair trail to be held. Although his crimes were against humanity, were far less heinous than those by Karadzic, at no point were the American prepared to have him tried in an International Court. Probably since the verdict of the capital punishment by a local court would sound much reasonable and far less debatable. Capital punishments around the world have been abolished by democracies and Karadzic would probably be jailed not executed if found guilty.

It would be interesting to see if Karadzic would end up the same fate that of Pinochet and Milosevic or Saddam Hussein.