Dragan Covic is the only politician from BiH who didn't comment on the verdict for Karadzic

President of HDZ BiH, Dragan Covic is the only politician from a parliamentary party in BiH who did not publicly react to final verdict for Karadzic, the first president of the RS, whose war crimes sentence was increased to life in prison at an appeal court in The Hague for his role in Srebrenica genocide and other war crimes in BiH including mass killings and persecution of Bosniaks and Croats in many other Bosnian towns.

During the war in BiH, some 135,000 Croats were expelled from now-the RS, while numbers of them were tortured and killed. Only 15,000 Croats remain in the RS out of 150,000 that lived there before the war.

The president of DF, Zeljko Komsic stated that final verdict for Karadzic represents the minimum of justice for all the victims, both Bosniaks and Croats, who were systematically expelled within the genocidal project of creating the Republika Srpska. SDP leader Nermin Niksic sent a similar message: 'Life sentence for Karadzic is the only punishment that can secure the minimum of justice for the victims'.

Messages of support for the life in prison verdict for Karadzic have also arrived from Croatia, as well as from a part of the opposition in Serbia. For Croatian president Grabar-Kitarovic, the verdict is a 'permanent warning', while Croatian Prime minister Andrej Plenkovic expressed his regrets that 'the court did not link the crimes in BiH with the political and military top ranks of then SRJ (Federal Republic of Yugoslavia) headed by Slobodan Milosevic'.

The former Serbian Defence Minister Dragan Sutanovica said that Karadzic's politics 'aggrieved his own and other peoples', while the LDP's leader Cedomir Jovanovic proposed 11 July to be proclaimed a national day of mourning in Serbia. The final verdict was also welcomed by the LSV president Nenad Canak from Novi Sad.

Reactions came from the EU underlining that lessons should be drawn from the verdict that a crime can't remain unpunished.

The Republika Srpska rejected the verdict, referring to it as a political verdict against the Serbs, while the president of the leading RS party SNSD and the member of BH presidency Milorad Dodik referred to it as 'hypocritical'.

Covic's silence to the verdict for Karadzic some analysts attributed to his close relationship with Dodik, as well as Covic's good relations with political top ranks of Serbia.

Once again Dragan Covic was in the limelight in BiH and in neighboring Croatia earlier this year when he took part in the celebration of Day of RS in Banja Luka, which inter alia saw Slavko Lisica, general major of the Army of the RS receive an award. Lisica was previously indicted for war crimes in Croatia.