Moscow calls Karadžić's conviction 'politicized'
Moscow believes that the genocide conviction of former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadžić is politicized, Interfax reported.
The Hague found Karadžić guilty of 10 of 11 charges on Thursday, including one count of genocide in the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, in which 7,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys were killed by Bosnian Serbs.
Karadžić, however, was found not guilty of the first case of genocide, relating to killing and ethnic cleansing in several Bosnian municipalities.
The former President of Republika Srpska was also convicted of crimes against humanity relating to the siege and shelling of the city of Sarajevo over several years which left nearly 12,000 people dead.
The 70-year-old Karadžić was handed a 40-year prison sentence.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Gennadiy Gatilov said that the decision of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) at The Hague was “politicized”, and the institution itself is biased.
"We have long said that the activities of the ICTY are politicized… We believe that such slant in the activities of the ICTY are unacceptable,” Gatilov said in an interview with Interfax.
Karadžić plans to submit an appeal.
Despite the guilty verdict, many are disappointed that Karadžić was acquitted of one count of genocide relating to ethnic cleansing in Bosnian municipalities at the beginning of the conflict.
“This judgment is a reward for Karadžić. We have no more faith in prosecutors and judges,” Hatidza Mehmedovic, a mother of one of the victims of Srebrenica, was quoted as saying by The Guardian.