Cordial mood awaits Karadzic in Hague detention unit

By Alexandra Hudson

THE HAGUE (Reuters) - Radovan Karadzic can expect an en suite cell, home-cooked Balkan cuisine and a convivial atmosphere where former enemies play table football when he is transferred to the detention unit of the Hague Tribunal.

Karadzic, leader of the Bosnian Serbs in the 1992-95 Bosnia war and one of the world's most wanted men, was arrested in Serbia this week after 11 years on the run.

Serbian officials say he could be extradited on Monday at the earliest to stand trial on charges of genocide for the massacre of 8,000 Bosnian Muslims at Srebrenica and the 43-month Sarajevo siege. His lawyers have appealed against extradition.

Karadzic would join 37 other suspects held by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in a purpose-built detention unit within a Dutch prison on the blustery North Sea coast, close to the resort of Scheveningen.

Four deaths at the tribunal, including that of former Serb leader Slobodan Milosevic in 2006, shocked and distressed the detainees, but it is also a place where former inmates say ethnic differences are forgotten and there is mutual support.

"You are not a Serb, Bosnian or Croat anymore -- you are just a detainee," a former court employee told Reuters.

Before his capture Karadzic, disguised as a new-age doctor, occupied a high-rise, concrete tower block in the drab suburb of New Belgrade and frequented a Serb hardliners bar.

His new home will be a 15 square metre cell identical to the one in which Milosevic spent the last five years of his life listening to Frank Sinatra music and planning his defence.