The hidden testimony of criminal Radovan Karadžić: This is how they arrested me in Belgrade

“On the day of my arrest, Friday, July 18, 2008, I was in an apartment in New Belgrade at Jurija Gagarina Street 267/19… In the evening, around 9 PM, I was heading to Batajnica to watch the “Milica Rakić” tournament… The bus suddenly stopped, two men approached me and grabbed me, I barely managed to cross myself… They held me in an underground cell for three days!”, reports the Patria News Agency.

Radovan Karadžić (71), former president of Republika Srpska, who was sentenced to 40 years in prison by the Hague Tribunal on March 24 for war crimes, was arrested in Zemun on July 18, 2008, while traveling by city bus to Batajnica to watch the “Milica Rakić” football tournament.

Karadžić recounted his arrest, as well as his years of hiding and evasion from the Hague pursuit, during interrogations on July 25 and 28, 2008. Informer obtained the minutes from that interrogation.

The first president of Republika Srpska denied the official version of his arrest with this testimony, according to which he was arrested disguised as Dr. Dragan Dabić in an intelligence services operation on July 21, 2008, on bus line 73, writes Informer.

We are publishing Radovan Karadžić's testimony in its entirety:

On Friday, July 18, 2008, I was in New Belgrade, in my apartment in Block 45, Jurija Gagarina Street 267, apartment number 19, an apartment I had rented for living. It was around 9 PM when I left that apartment to go to Batajnica to watch the “Milica Rakić” football tournament.

These are night tournaments held at night in the elementary school in Batajnica and they last late into the night. It involves amateur footballers, and I like watching amateurs, especially since they are of school age here. After that, I intended to continue to Vrdnik, which is located below Fruška Gora.

I thought it was a check

There were no passengers at the entrance stop. The bus gradually filled up, but I wasn't watching because I was reading a book. After one stop outside Zemun, in an area of agricultural land, the bus unexpectedly stopped outside a station. It was around 9:30 PM then. Two men in civilian clothes approached me, whose faces I couldn't see clearly. One stood to the side, placed his hand on my shoulder, and the other went forward, quickly unfolded some kind of ID that I couldn't identify, and ordered me to go with them.

I thought it was a check and reached into my pocket to take out my bus ticket. They stopped me and ordered me even more sternly to go with them, grabbing me by both arms, I barely managed to cross myself…

They took me out of the bus and turned me towards them. During the exit, one of them covered my eyes with my hat, so I couldn't see my steps, and I stumbled. They turned me towards the fields. The bus left. Then a vehicle arrived, and they put me in the back seat, with one of them sitting on each side. In the front seat, besides the driver, there was someone who seemed to be the leader, as he was informing someone on his mobile phone that he was returning, and someone he was talking to on the phone probably asked him if the job was done.

They didn't put handcuffs on me, but the man on my left held my hands. There was no traffic at that moment. It's possible that traffic was stopped. It seems to me that the car was facing the opposite direction of the bus's travel.

The vehicle was dark, black. There was no further communication between these individuals. Communication was via mobile phone. The one said “we are returning”, and in response to a question from the other end of the line, he just said “yes, yes”.

The drive lasted more than half an hour. There was some traffic, but they were driving irregularly, meaning they were overtaking and somehow managing to hold back others. They drove sharply, fast, and had priority. I think there was some kind of siren, but no lights. Other vehicles let them pass.

Mysterious cell

The vehicle arrived at a building. I noticed that at the entrance, whether it was into the yard or the building itself, there was a metal detector frame. There was no ramp. That building has a separate entrance for that unit. There is a kitchen and a cell there. I saw the metal detector under my hat. When I entered that building and the cell, they took off my hat. I was escorted through a corridor with my hat on. At the end of that corridor, I was locked in a room, or rather, they led me into that room, where they took off my hat, and then I could clearly see the room. The walls of that room were dark-colored.

Bordeaux-colored carpet was glued to the walls up to half the height. The upper half of the wall was also dark-colored. As I entered the door of the room where I was locked, there was a small bed on the left. The headboard of that bed was against the wall. When looking at the headboard, to the right, there was a small table fixed to the wall and the floor, it looked more like a chest.

On the other wall, to the right of the bed, there was also a fixed chair and another similar table. The chair also looked like a box, like a chest. The room was 2.5 x 2.5 meters.

The room had no natural light and no window. The light was on the walls, below the ceiling, covered with frosted glass and fixed. The lighting was inadequate and disturbing. After reading for a while, my eyes started to hurt. They promised to do something about it.

At one point, the light went out and came back on like a generator starting up, meaning the light was at a lower voltage. Towards the entrance door, in the same room, there was a toilet with a squat toilet. There were metal bars on the room door.

When we entered the room and when they took my hat off my face, they told me to take everything out of my pockets. I think two other men, not the ones who approached me on the bus, escorted me to that room. They were strongmen. I had two mobile phones with me: 064/393-30-95 and 062/187-74-84, apartment keys, a Swiss Army knife as a keychain, and a four-gigabyte flash memory stick.

I had a wallet for my driver's license, and inside were my ID card, bank cards, and business cards.

I also had two harmonizers of my own making, which I use to maintain my health. I put them on the table. They collected them and took them away, without any record. Moreover, those two said nothing. When they collected the documents, they turned around and locked the bars. They didn't lock the door, it was blocked, they only locked the bars.

I stayed there for three days. As for the time, I oriented myself by approaching the bars and through them, I could see the kitchen and daylight. The kitchen is at ground level and daylight penetrated into it. So I was sure that I spent a total of three days and three nights in that room. So I spent the night from Friday to Saturday, the night from Saturday to Sunday, and the night from Sunday to Monday.

On the second day, a man came, whom I assume was an officer and higher in rank than the others who were with him. They were all in civilian clothes, and from the way the others addressed him, I concluded he was their superior. This man was interested and asked why I wasn't eating. I said it was for personal reasons, that I had no demands and that it wasn't a protest.

They continued to bring plenty of fruit, breakfast, lunch, and dinner regularly, offering me to choose what I wanted to eat and to prepare healthy food for me. After that, the man, and another one higher in rank, insisted a few more times that I eat, and told me that if something happened to me, I would put the Serbian leadership in an awkward position by not eating.

I told them not to report to anyone that I wasn't eating, that it was a private matter, that I wasn't protesting or on a hunger strike. I asked if someone would talk to me, and they said it would happen when the time came. Those young men who were there and guarding me told me that “when the time comes”.

Complete isolation

There were four or six young men guarding me. They took turns. Initially, there were two of them per shift, and later others would come. All these young men who guarded me were around 30 years old. Medium to tall height. One was short-haired, with black hair, and a long face. The other was unremarkable in appearance, with lighter skin.

I can't remember the others. The one I said was higher in rank than those guarding me asked for the daily newspaper to be brought to me. They would organize it, but it would take some time. Occasionally, I would hear the sound of airplanes above the room where I was staying.

On several occasions, I begged them to let me send an SMS message to any of my friends, just saying that everything was okay, that they shouldn't look for me in hospitals or morgues, but they didn't allow it. Then I begged them to give them my number and the text, and they would send such a message, but they wouldn't do that either. When I say “friends”, I mean friends I made while using the name Dr. Dragan Dabić. I meant my friends and patients whom I treated…