Radovan Karadzic, 63, the former Bosnian Serb leader has long been one of the world's most wanted fugitives, having evaded capture for 13 years.
He is accused of masterminding atrocities in the Bosnian war, including the massacre of 8,000 Muslims in Srebrenica, the shelling of Sarajevo and the use of 284 UN peacekeepers as human shields.
He was charged twice by the UN war crimes tribunal, but evaded arrest, often through using elaborate disguises.
He was fugitive from 1995 until 2008, during which time he managed to become a published author and work at a private clinic in Belgrade, specialising in alternative medicine and psychology under the alias Dr Dragan David Dabic.
Unique position
During his years on the run Karadzic was protected by a guard of 80 armed loyalists who were determined to thwart any attempts by Nato troops to arrest him.
| Timeline: Radovan Karadzic |
1945: Born into poverty in Montenegro, the son of a Serb nationalist fighter
1960: Moves to Sarajevo, marries, studies medicine, becomes a pyschiatrist, writes poetry and meets Dobrica Cosic, who encourages him to enter politics.
1968: Publishes poetry collection
1971: Graduates in medicine
1974-1975: Studies at Columbia University in New York
1983: Becomes a hospital worker in Belgrade
1990: Helps found and serves as President of SDS party
1992: Civil war breaks out between Serbs, Croats and Muslims after the UN recognises Bosnia-Herzegovina as an independent state.
1992-1995: Bosnian war
Nov 1995: The Dayton peace accords are brokered. Karadzic is indicted for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity by the UN tribunal.
1996: Resigns the presidency and goes into hiding.
2004: During his years on the run, he publishes a book called Miraculous Chronicles of the Night.
2008: Arrested in Belgrade, after he had been living in the city and practising alternative medicine in disguise. |
As the leader of the SDS and president of a breakaway Serb republic and commander of its army, Karadzic's position was unique, enabling him to have contact with Bosnian Serb General Ratko Mladic, a fellow indictee, and every member of the wartime Bosnian Serb government.
The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) issued an outstanding arrest warrant against Karadzic for numerous war crimes committed against non-Serbs, during the Bosnian War (1992-1995) as Supreme Commander of the Bosnian Serb armed forces and President of the National Security Council of the Republika Srpska.
As a result he was jointly charged by the International Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in 1995, along with General Ratko Mladic.
Karadzic was born in 1945 in Savnik, Montenegro.
His father, Vuko, had been a member of the Chetniks - Serb nationalist fighters during World War II - and was in prison for much of his son's childhood.
In 1960 he moved to Sarajevo to pursue his studies in psychiatry, where he later met his wife, Ljiljana, graduated as a doctor, and worked at a hospital in Belgrade.
He also became a poet and fell under the influence of Dobrica Cosic, Serbian nationalist writer, who encouraged him to pursue a career in politics.
After working briefly for the Green Party, Karadzic played an important role in setting up the Serbian Democratic Party (SDS), created in 1990 in an attempt to halt the rise of the Croat parties in Bosnia.
Almost two years later, as Bosnia-Herzegovina was recognised as an independent state, he declared himself as the first president of the new Serbian Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, with Sarajevo as its capital, after Bosnia's first democratic elections in 1990.
The move triggered one of the bloodiest wars in modern Europe, post the second world war.
He stepped down as president of the SDS in July 1996, as the West threatened sanctions against the Republic of Bosnia and Hercegovina, renamed the Republika Srpska.