Karadzic taken to Hague for genocide trial

By Reed Stevenson

THE HAGUE (Reuters) - Former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic was taken to a prison cell in The Hague on Wednesday to face trial at a U.N. war crimes tribunal on charges of genocide during the 1992-95 Bosnia war.

Karadzic, arrested near Belgrade last week, was flown out of Serbia by plane at night under tight security. Shortly after dawn, he was whisked from Rotterdam airport to the Scheveningen detention centre near The Hague.

He will appear before the tribunal for the first time at 4 p.m. (1400 GMT) on Thursday, and will be asked to enter a plea to the charges against him, the court said.

"His arrest is a major achievement of Serbia's cooperation with the U.N. Security Council," Prosecutor Serge Brammertz told reporters at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.

Brammertz noted two fugitives were still on the run after the Balkan wars of the 1990s, one of them the Bosnian Serb wartime commander, General Ratko Mladic.

The only higher ranking official to be brought before the tribunal for crimes during the Balkan wars was Karadzic's former ally, Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic.

Milosevic spent his last five years at the centre and was found dead from heart failure in his 15 square metre cell in 2006, months before a verdict was due at his trial, a blow to Brammertz's predecessor who described it as a "total defeat".

Asked about the long-drawn-out Milosevic trial, Brammertz vowed to conduct Karadzic's trial efficiently and to do all he could to make the prosecution successful.