Hiding in plain sight, Radovan Karadzic disguised himself by growing a beard and avoiding hair cuts. Then he did the Clark Kent thing, and put on a pair of eyeglasses. No one ever recognized Superman, did they?
He went to Belgrade, to a big city, where he could get lost in the crowd. Rather than revert to his previous occupation---no, the job he held before he became the orchestrator of mass murder---he avoided being too obvious. Once a psychiatrist, he did a complete turn and became a phony doctor practicing alternative medicine.
No one suspected that the old man who resembled a Q-tip with glasses was being sought by international authorities. He had his share of patients, having made a small living in his pose of physician. What did he prescribe? Kill two Muslims and call me in the morning, you'll feel better?
By living openly, under a false identity, Radovan Karadzic avoided a meeting with justice for thirteen years. In all that time, someone must have recognized him, must have seen him and known who he was. In all that time, he never lost the luster among some of his hard-core followers, who would have known him but turned the other way, rather than turn him in.
A trial will follow, a trial in which the accused will deny everything, in spite of the mounds of evidence presented. He will be sent to prison, after thirteen years of relative freedom, where he will grow old and sick and plead for clemency so that he might die in the loving arms of his family. His request will be seriously considered, because the dead of Srebenica will not be in the courtroom on that day, to remind everyone that the man pleading for mercy never granted them the opportunity to die peacefully in their beds.
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