The real Dragan Dabic has emerged — and the 66-year construction worker was shocked to discover his identity had apparently been stolen by one of the world’s most notorious war crimes suspects.
Former Serbian president Radovan Karadzic assumed Dabic’s identity as a cover during the autocratic rule of his mentor, Yugoslavian president Slobodan Milosevic, officials said on Thursday, promising to track down anyone who helped the Bosnian Serb warlord stay on the run from genocide charges for nearly 13 years.
The true Dabic lives in Ruma, a Serbian town just north of Belgrade, said Rasim Ljajic, a government official in charge of war crimes.
PHOTO: AP
“Dabic’s ID differs from Karadzic’s only in the photographs of the two,” Ljajic said.
That discovery certainly altered Dabic’s plans for the day.
“Instead of working in the garden, I’m being besieged by reporters and answering telephone calls,” Dabic said in Ruma, adding that he had no idea how the copy of his ID ended up in Karadzic’s hands.
“This is unfair. Instead of finding out who really cooked this up, I’m being questioned by police,” said Dabic, who bears no physical resemblance to Karadzic.
It also meant that all earlier reports on other Dragan Dabics — one official said there were seven dead or alive in Sarajevo alone — were tossed aside as false leads.
Officials were trying to figure out whether Karadzic’s ID was a fake or an official copy of Dabic’s original.
Bruno Vekaric, spokesman for Serbia’s war crimes prosecutor, said Karadzic obtained the false papers while Milosevic’s regime was still in power.
Those suspected of helping Karadzic evade justice will be prosecuted, Vekaric said, adding that authorities hoped they could also help track down the remaining war crimes fugitives, including Bosnian Serb wartime military commander General Ratko Mladic.
Several hundred ultranationalists — chanting Karadzic’s name and denouncing Serbia’s new pro-Western government — marched in downtown Belgrade on Thursday in support of Karadzic.
Karadzic sent word he plans to defend himself against UN genocide charges. But his fellow Serbs were more enthralled with details of his secret life: a mistress, a bogus family in the US and regular visits to The Madhouse bar.
Meanwhile, an Austrian daily reported yesterday that Karadzic worked in Vienna as “miracle healer” during his years under cover.
The Kurier quotes a married couple as saying that Karadzic called himself “Pera” and saw patients in homes of Serbians living in the Austrian capital.
The couple, whose names were altered by the paper to protect their identity, say they sought his services after trying in vain to have children. Kurier quotes them as saying their encounter with him occurred in mid-2006 and that they last heard from him more than a year ago.
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