Europe's most wanted man's life in disguise

Belgrade: There is nothing extraordinary about where former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic was hiding all these years. He picked a flat in a densely populated area known as New Belgrade, hiding in plain sight of neighbours who did notice a strange man always dressed in black.

"I think early this summer, I remember we were sitting there, wondering and talking about his appearance," says Rusica, a neighbour. "He was strange because of his white beard and long hair."

Serb investigators say not even his landlords knew who he was. They say they found Karadzic while following people believed to be part of a network that protected him.

While in the hiding, Karadzic frequently used to visit Crazy House — a café down the street from his flat. The café still has a picture of him and his wartime commander Ratko Mladic, who’s still on the run, on prominent display.

The owner says Karadzic, under the alias of Dragan Dabic, often sat at his café to drink his favourite red wine and listen to Serb national songs.

When asked if he would have protected Karadzic’s identity had he known about it, the café owner Tomas Kovinjanic says, "Yes I would have protected him by all means. He was a hero who protected Serbs."

During his hiding, the former Bosnian Serb president posed as a doctor of alternative medicine, changed his appearance and name, and even participated in public forums on healthy living.

The editor of a health magazine who organised the forums says he met Karadzic last October.

He says though the fugitive's credentials as an alternative medicine doctor where strange, Karadzic, who educated in Russia with brief travels to Asia, was quite convincing.

"His body language was calm. Then he would get theatrical. He moved his hands a lot. He was very good with the crowds. He knew how to engage people and how to keep their attention. I can say without any doubt that he was one the best speakers I ever hired for our lectures," Editor, Healthy Living, Gorgan Kojic says.

The most wanted man in Europe, believed to be responsible for the deaths of thousands, even ran a website in which he wrote people are programmed to live between 120 and 130, which is an age that could be reached by those who received his treatments.

Karadzic will end up on trial at the UN war crimes tribunal for a different kind of treatment of men and boys held in concentration camps during the 1992-95 Bosnia war and thousands of others who died.

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