Karadzic Lawyers Fight Extradition

The war crimes tribunal in the Hague was last night still waiting to receive captured Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, as his legal team engaged in a last-ditch game of cat and mouse with the Serbian authorities.

Karadzic's lawyer, Svetozar Vujacic, was quoted by the Politika daily as saying an appeal against extradition was mailed from a post office on Friday evening, just before the deadline for the application expired. Speaking with reporters yesterday, he refused to disclose any further details.

'I cannot say anything about the appeal, where or when I filed it or what is in it,' he said. 'Had I talked about it, the appeal would already be rejected and Radovan Karadzic would already be on his way to The Hague.'

Nerma Jelacic, spokeswoman for the tribunal, said yesterday: 'The cell is ready, and the judges are ready for him to appear before them. It is now down to Serbia to deliver him.'

Karadzic faces 11 charges 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 the Second World War. Once judges decide on the appeal, the case will be handed over to the Serbian government, which issues the final extradition order.

Thousands of people protested in Bosnian Serb cities on Saturday against the arrest of Karadzic. As many as 2,000 turned up in Karadzic's wartime stronghold of Pale, east of Sarajevo, wearing T-shirts with the phrase 'Serbian Hero' underneath his image. The Serbian Democratic Party, founded by Karadzic, organised the protests.

Meanwhile, Bosnian women who won a civil case in the United States against Karadzic, in absentia, for serial rape in the Omarska concentration camp during 1992 said yesterday they would now pursue him for the unlimited damages they were awarded.

Eight women gave graphic testimony about sexual abuse in the camp, and, to the lower level of proof in a civilian case, proved a chain of command between Karadzic and atrocities on the ground that the prosecutors at The Hague will strive to establish to the degree required by a criminal court.

One of the women, Biba Harambasic, living in Prijedor near the camp, told The Observer at her apartment yesterday: 'It is not a question of money. My pride was that we won the case and that the jury believed us, and that the chain of command between Karadzic and what happened was there. Most of all, it was just to be believed that what we said was true. So often, when we talk about these things, people say they are just empty stories.'