Appeal deadline for Karadzic passes amid efforts to stall his extradition

By JERUSALEM POST STAFF
The deadline passed for Radovan Karadzic to lodge a formal appeal against his handover to the war crimes court in The Hague, Netherlands, with the ex-Bosnian Serb warlord's lawyer refusing to confirm that he had taken that step. The lawyer, Sveta Vujacic, was clearly doing all he could to fight the extradition, but that included keeping everyone guessing. Karadzic faces 11 charges against him at The Hague tribunal, including genocide and conspiracy to commit genocide, for allegedly masterminding the 1995 slaughter of 8,000 Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica - Europe's worst massacre since World War II. A prosecutor interviewed Karadzic for more than an hour on Friday about the details of the war crime suspect's arrest, Vujacic said. Karadzic then had until midnight to lodge the formal appeal, Serbian court spokeswoman Ivana Ramic told The Associated Press. Once the Serb court receives the appeal, a panel of judges will meet to decide on it, Ramic explained. After that, the case will be handed over to the Serbian government, which issues the final extradition order. But all Vujacic would say was that he planned to mail Karadzic's appeal to the court five minutes before post offices closed at 1800 GMT- a move aimed at prolonging Karadzic's extradition period. He predicted that Karadzic would not be extradited before Wednesday.