War suspect Karadzic's daughter elected to top Bosnian Serb post

Sonja Karadzic Jovicevic has been elected as deputy speaker of the parliament of Republika Srpska (RS)

SARAJEVO: The daughter of Radovan Karadzic, the Bosnian Serb wartime leader currently on trial for war crimes, was elected Monday to a top political post in Bosnia's Serb-run entity.

In a parliamentary reshuffle, Sonja Karadzic Jovicevic was elected as deputy speaker of the parliament of Republika Srpska (RS), a semi-independent entity that along with the Muslim-Croat Federation makes up post-war Bosnia Herzegovina.



The 48-year old doctor by training, Karadzic Jovicevic was elected MP in 2014 on the list of the nationalist Serb Democratic Party founded by her father ahead of the 1990s inter-ethnic war.

During the conflict Karadzic Jovicevic served as chief of staff for the Bosnian Serb government's information minister, which promoted her father's policies.

Along with her mother Ljiljana and a dozen other people, Sonja Karadzic Jovicevic was considered by the international community a key part of a network that hid Radovan Karadzic.

He was on the run from a UN war crimes court in The Hague for 13 years, until 2008 when he was arrested in Belgrade.

The 70-year old Karadzic is on trial before the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes over his role in the conflict.

"If we talk about justice and the rule of law... Radovan Karadzic should be set free immediately," Sonja Karadzic Jovicevic said while running for parliament in 2014.



The 1992-95 war claimed 100,000 lives and left some two million people homeless, almost half of pre-war Bosnia's population.