Radovan Karadžić, the former Bosnian Serb leader convicted of genocide over the 1995 massacre in Srebrenica, is to be transferred to a UK prison from The Hague to serve the rest of his life sentence.
He is not the first war criminal to be transferred to a UK prison. He joins:
Charles Taylor
The former Liberian president is serving his 50-year sentence for war crimes in Britain.
The UN-backed special court for Sierra Leone in The Hague found Taylor guilty of 11 counts of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and other serious violations of international humanitarian law, including murder, forced labour and slavery, recruiting child soldiers and rape.
He was found criminally responsible for “aiding and abetting” the Revolutionary United Front and other factions carrying out atrocities in Sierra Leone between 1996 and 2002.
The court heard that the Liberian leader knew from August 1997 about the campaign of terror being waged against the civilian population in Sierra Leone and about the sale of “blood diamonds” in return for weapons.
He unsuccessfully challenged his imprisonment in the UK on human rights grounds.
Radislav Krstić
A former Serbian general convicted of genocide for his part in the Srebrenica massacre, Krstić was captured in a joint operation by British and American forces in 2001 and brought to face trial before an international tribunal.
He was initially sentenced to 46 years’ imprisonment, but that was reduced on appeal and it was agreed that he would serve time in prison in Britain.
Krstić was attacked in May 2010, his throat slashed while serving time in Wakefield prison by “Islamic extremists” and he was later awarded more than £50,000 in compensation. He was transferred back to the Netherlands and then on to Poland where he is serving his sentence.
Ahmad al-Faqi al-Mahdi
A Mali Islamic militant, Mahdi stood in the first trial at the international criminal court to focus solely on cultural destruction as a war crime.
He pleaded guilty to the single charge of “intentionally directing” attacks on nine of Timbuktu’s mausoleums and the centuries-old door of its Sidi Yahia mosque in 2012, when the Malian city was occupied by a coalition of militant groups.
The shrines were “the heart of Mali’s cultural heritage [and] were of great importance to people of Timbuktu”, he said. “Their destruction does not just affect the direct victims of the crimes, but people throughout Mali and the international community.”
He was sentenced to nine years and in 2018 he was transferred to a prison in Scotland to serve the remainder of his sentence.
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