And another one down ...
It went smoother than they expected. Preparing for the arrival of the 63-year old Radovan Karadžić, the officials at the Dutch prison near Scheveningen placed the detention facility on high alert in response to the fusillade of terrorist threats they'd received since a week ago. Staff was augmented, more guards were called in to duty and extra precautionary procedures were instituted.
Early this morning, the private Republika Srbija jet carrying Karadžić landed at Rotterdam, the prisoner was escorted out under heavy guard and whisked away into one of a fleet of police helicopters, all of which immediately set off for Scheveningen at high speed.
Karadžić, reportedly now clean-shaven and with his hair trimmed back to its only-mostly-unruly salt and pepper mop, is now ensconced in a 17 x 10 foot cell, equipped with a shower, toilet, washbasin and bed - as well as a desk, a coffee maker, bookshelves, a radio set and satellite television. He will have access to non-networked computers as well as a fully equipped gym, an outdoor courtyard, a library, a prison shop, a religion room for prayer, and a common recreation room where prisoners can play one another in darts, table tennis, or board games. He will also have access to arts, languages or sciences courses.
This is, of course, only his home for the duration of his trial. If convicted, he will serve out his sentence (minus time already served) in a country that volunteers to imprison him, just like 56 ICTY detainees sentenced by the trial chamber have done and just as the 33 ICTY detainees still awaiting or undergoing trial may also do.
All of this well-wishing of course rests on utter faith in Chief Hague Prosecutor Serge Brammertz and his team as they burn the midnight oil poring over the Karadžić indictment, last amended eight years ago. Nobody has forgotten the Hague's abject failures in the cases of Naser Orić and Ramush Haradinaj (notorious Bosniak and Albanian war criminals who were sentenced to time already served and acquited altogether, respectively). The only way they could possibly fuck up worse is to somehow let the Real Butcher of the Balkans slip through the only justice system that the so-called "international community" can bring to bear on a mass murderer.