LAST week, former Serbian leader Radovan Karadzic, Number One Most Wanted on Bosnia’s war-crimes list, was arrested. He’d gone into hiding in his own country 12 years ago. He’d given his only interview in this country 15 years ago. To me.
A problem was where to house him. He arrived in our country at 5 a.m. with a $10 mil contract on his head. His party of two dozen included hulking guys to whom carry-on luggage meant Uzis. In NYC he was booked at the Marriott. Due to demonstrations, the hotel asked this then-president of Serbian-controlled Bosnia-Herzegovina to move.
He relocated to an entire floor of the unthrilled InterContinental, which actually suggested he go elsewhere. Under maximum security, the world’s Number One hit, traveling with a State Department security force, was forbidden outside a 10-block radius. We ended up in Chiam, a nearby Chinese restaurant. They cleared out a special room for us. Trust me, those waiters never served beef and peapods so fast.
I have no information on his current charges or present whereabouts. I know only what he told me then:
“For me, New York is something special. I came here originally to listen to poetry readings. I would like to revisit those places, where I spent so much time. I would want again to see Riverside Drive, where I enjoyed many happy hours walking. My days were spent on the campus of Columbia University, listening to lectures. I would like to walk through there again.
“And I want to go through Central Park. And not only have Chinese food, which I love, but to go to Spanish-Chinese, like Cuban Chinese, because that is similar to our food at home. I hope room service can send up hamburgers and those good New York meals that I miss.”
We met on two successive nights. I don’t know what a butcher – as he’s called – should look like. I only know that this man in a striped shirt and paisley tie with matching pocket hanky didn’t look like one.
Smiled Rad, “I am a poet. I have had two books of poetry published. My wife and I lived in your wonderful city one whole year – ’74 to ’75 – studying poetry.”
A poet? This killer who’s branded a war criminal?
“I never killed anyone. Not one human being. Not even an insect. The only living organism I ever killed in my life was a cockroach. And it was here in New York.
“I had no money. I lived in a West Side hotel that was dirty. When my wife, Ljiljana, came, we moved to 104th Street. The places were not too good and, again, cockroaches. Those, I admit, I stepped on.”
I said to him, but what about those atrocities committed in his name in his country? What about the lawsuits leveled at him from human-rights groups over the rapes of Muslim woman by his Serbian army?
Said Dr. Karadzic: “Serbian soldiers are mostly former communist officers. Communists are very strict about atrocities. To imagine one soldier in the communist-trained army raping a woman in front of another is impossible.
“However, we tracked down 18 cases. A few soldiers. A few, not. Some are already in jail. Others know we are after them and are hiding. But they cannot escape. If they killed, it will be the death sentence. If they raped, they will be punished according to law. If they are soldiers and these were organized rapes, they will be treated as war criminals.”
And him personally?
“If I am found to be a war criminal, then, I, too, shall be treated the same.
“Inhumanity exists on all sides in war. We have proof that Muslims have a whorehouse holding Serbian women against their will. There are six such places in Sarajevo alone. We captured Muslim soldiers who carried cards on them that allowed them to use these Serbian women overnight.”
Karadzic was born in the mountains and received medical training in Sarajevo, specializing in psychotherapy. His wife, then of 28 years, also a psychotherapist, is the same age.
“But he is six months older,” Ljiljana told me.
She also said: “I worry very much about our children. We have a daughter who just completed medical training and a son who is in the police. We cannot think about the terror daily. We just try to deny it. We pray to someday live without it. For me, I must try to do some normal things. Last time I was here, I bought my daughter shoes and a gold necklace. She loves New York. But we only buy when we see sales.”
Radovan Karadzic left this country on his own plane. Before leaving, Mrs. First Lady, a brunette in a black skirt and red turtle neck, made a quickie run to nearby Kaufman’s Pharmacy. She schlepped on board two huge shopping bags laden with the basics: aspirin, Band-Aids, Advil, Sudafed, salves for cuts, stuff for stopped-up noses – not any of which the then-prez of the brand-new Republic of Srpska could find anywhere in his country.