Karadzic, Radovan

Karadzic, Radovan

(born June 19, 1945, Petnijca, Yugos.) Bosnian Serb politician. He trained as a psychiatrist and also wrote poetry and children's books. In 1990 he helped found the Serbian Democratic Party of Bosnia and Herzegovina. In 1992, when the Bosnian Serbs declared an independent state, he became its president. With the support of Yugoslav Pres. Slobodan Miloševic and with Bosnian Serb military leader Gen. Ratko Mladic, Karadzic undertook a campaign of ethnic cleansing in Bosnia to purge it of non-Serbian peoples. In 1995 he was indicted by a UN war crimes tribunal. He was pressured into signing the Dayton peace accords and forced to resign as state president and party head in 1996. However, he continued to influence the Serb-controlled part of Bosnia and Herzegovina from a mountain hideaway outside Sarajevo. Despite attempts to arrest him, he was able to evade capture through the 1990s and into the early 21st century.