Peasant shocked by Karadzic ID theft

The real Dragan Dabic has emerged- a 66-year-old peasant and construction worker who was shocked to find his identity had apparently been stolen by one of the world’s most notorious war crimes suspects.

Radovan Karadzic assumed Mr Dabic’s identity as a cover during the autocratic rule of his mentor Slobodan Milosevic, officials said yesterday as they promised to track down anyone who helped the Bosnian Serb warlord stay on the run from genocide charges for nearly 13 years.

Rasim Ljajic, a government official in charge of war crimes, said investigators determined that the true Mr Dabic lived in Ruma, a Serbian town just north of Belgrade.

“Dabic’s ID differs from Karadzic’s only in the photographs of the two,” Mr Ljajic said.

Karadzic, 63, was arrested in Belgrade on Monday by Serbian security forces. He is to fight extradition to the United Nations war crimes tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands.

Mr Dabic said: ``Instead of working in the garden, I'm being besieged by reporters and answering telephone calls.''

He said 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 Mr Dabic.

It also meant that all earlier reports on other Dragan Dabics – one official said there were seven dead or alive in the Bosnian capital of Sarajevo alone - were tossed aside as false leads.

Officials were trying to work out whether Karadzic’s ID was a fake or an official copy of Mr Dabic’s original.