Karadžić sent a message through his lawyer Sladojević

BANJA LUKA, (Patria) - Lawyer and member of Radovan Karadžić's defence team, Marko Sladojević, read on RTRS a message to the Serbian people written by the first president of Republika Srpska, an entity in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Radovan Karadžić, who was sentenced to life imprisonment by the Hague Tribunal on Wednesday for genocide in Srebrenica and other war crimes during the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina from 1992 to 1995.

The message of the convicted Karadžić, read on RTRS by lawyer Sladojević, reads:

"The Serbian people and I together with them have already won. Republika Srpska was created, and the Serbian people are free in their own state. The sacrifice I am making is lesser than others. Thousands and thousands of young men built Republika Srpska with their lives. Many became war invalids. The greatest sacrifices were made by mothers, whose sons, often only sons, gave their lives for the freedom of the Serbian people. Those are true sacrifices. This futile revenge of the Hague Tribunal against me, an old man, can do nothing. We did not surrender even when it was far more difficult, and even imprisoned like this, I will never stop fighting for the truth about our just struggle in a war that was imposed on us and in which all three peoples suffered. In every war, especially a civil one, monsters commit crimes which our state, if it knew, condemned and prosecuted. We fought honourably for the freedom and equality of the Serbian people in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Therefore, always and everywhere, let us be dignified, do not hate others, and proudly preserve what is above us – our Republika Srpska.”

The Appeals Chamber of the Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals yesterday sentenced former President of Republika Srpska Radovan Karadžić to life imprisonment, convicted for genocide in Srebrenica, where more than 8,000 Bosniaks were killed in the summer of 1995. Karadžić was also convicted for the shelling of Sarajevo during the four-year siege of the city, as well as for the expulsion of Bosniaks and Croats from other parts of Bosnia and Herzegovina. 

The entire military and political leadership of Republika Srpska, an entity in BiH, has been convicted before the International Court in The Hague, as well as other international courts, for the most serious crimes in Bosnia and Herzegovina during the war in the 1990s.