‘Karadzic – Holbrooke deal was signed’

A deal guaranteeing immunity for Bosnian war-time leader Radovan Karadzic was agreed by US special envoy Richard Holbrooke, it has been claimed.

Gojko Klickovic, who is indicted for war crimes, said he was present when an agreement was made and signed by Radovan Karadzic and Richard Holbrooke in 1996, he told the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina in Sarajevo.

Giving testimony as a defence witness at his own trail, Klickovic, who is charged with crimes committed in Bosanska Krupa, said the deal was signed sometime in July 1996. 

“I was involved in negotiations pertaining to the agreement on Karadzic’s withdrawal from the political scene. At that time, the gentlemen agreed that they would not speak about it in public,” Klickovic said.

From 1996 to 1998, Klickovic was Prime Minister of Republika Srpska. During the war he was commander of the Crisis Committee and leader of the Serb municipality of Bosanska Krupa.

Radovan Karadzic, former president of Republika Srpska, is charged, before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, ICTY, with genocide and other crimes committed in Bosnia and Herzegovina during the war. Richard Holbrooke was special US envoy to the Balkans in the 1990s.

Klickovic is charged, together with Mladen Drljaca and Jovan Ostojic, with murder, forcible resettlement, physical and mental abuse, rape, and detention and torture of non-Serb population of Bosanska Krupa in 1992. They are also charged with taking part in a joint criminal enterprise along with Vojislav Maksimovic and Radovan Karadzic.

Klickovic’s trail started in May 2008 in the front of the state War Crimes Chamber.