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BELGRADE–The infamous, hunted war-crime suspect was not in a distant monastery or a dark cave when caught, but living in Serbia's capital. Nor was Radovan Karadzic lurking inconspicuously, but instead giving public lectures on alternative medicine before audiences of hundreds.
He was hiding only behind an enormous beard, white ponytailed hair topped with an odd black tuft and a new life so at odds with his myth as to deflect suspicion.
The day after 63-year-old Karadzic's capture on Monday, foes and supporters alike were left to marvel at what appeared to be his complete metamorphosis. As Serbs grappled with the repercussions of his arrest, and his place as a symbol of crimes carried out in their name, they were also left to sort out the two lives of a single man.
The fatigues-wearing leader of the Bosnian Serbs was unrecognizable in a guise that was part-guru and part-Santa Claus. As Dragan Dabic, the former psychiatrist worked for years in a clinic in Belgrade, the Serbian capital, practising alternative medicine.
The secret life was very different from his years as the outspoken, clean-shaven leader – with a prominent square jaw and a distinctive shock of grey hair. His face, ruddy in his heyday, is now sunken and shallow. His eyes are dull behind old-fashioned, tinted frames.
The slightly curved nose is the only obvious similarity.
He even lectured on videotape at local community centres, an open and active life that would appear to be an extraordinary risk for one of the world's most wanted men.
Last October, he showed up at a wellness convention organized by Healthy Life magazine and introduced himself to the editor as a neuro-psychiatrist who wanted to contribute articles.
That part of his new identity was closest to his old self: Karadzic had studied in Sarajevo and qualified as a psychiatrist specializing in neurosis and depression.
"He was a kind man, with good manners, quiet and witty," Goran Kojic, the magazine's editor, told Reuters.
"He said he was a psychiatrist who does energy therapies. I told him we were not able to pay him and could only give him an issue of the magazine for free.
"He was not physically fit, but I would say he was mentally fit."
Kojic said Karadzic did not have a Bosnian accent.
"I asked where he was from and he said he was from the Krajina region. I think he told me he had children. I doubted he had a degree because he didn't specify where he was working. He never showed me his diploma; he said his wife left it in the United States."
As the soft-spoken Dr. Dabic, Karadzic held lectures and wrote articles comparing popular meditation techniques to "orthodox meditation," a silent technique practised by monks in Orthodox monasteries.
"For an older person, he had very many interests," said Maja Djelic, 28, a Belgrade resident who, like Karadzic, wrote for Healthy Life. She said they also met for coffee and conversations about acupuncture and the Internet at a café called Biblioteka in downtown Belgrade. Karadzic, she recalled, was very interested in improving his website.
"He said, when being introduced, 'My name is Dr. Dabic, but call me David', " she said, adding that the two met last November.
"He was really friendly and really open and had a way of speaking with people," Djelic said.
She said he seemed like a valuable member of the small alternative-medicine community here, not someone who could have been the force behind the notorious Srebrenica massacre and the deadly siege of Sarajevo.
Despite the apparent completeness of his disguise, it was not publicly known whether, as war crimes prosecutors have often alleged, the Serbian government had long been aware of Karadzic's location and was only waiting for a convenient moment to apprehend him.
The arrest, nearly 13 years to the day after his indictment for the massacre of nearly 8,000 Bosnian men and boys at Srebrenica, seemed aimed at strengthening Serbia's ties to the European Union.
A condition for membership remains the capture of Karadzic's wartime ally, Gen. Ratko Mladic, who is also being sought for trial in The Hague on genocide charges.
A wartime friend of Karadzic, who did not want to be named to avoid the attention of prosecutors, said the change in Karadzic was so complete, "you could only recognize him if you know him by the sound of his voice."
Yet, in the end, it was not enough to keep Karadzic out of the grasp of authorities here.
The friend said he believed the arrest was the result of a tip-off, but also that recently Karadzic had "made a mistake in communication," though he declined to elaborate further.
Whatever led to his apprehension, the authorities managed to track down the elusive Karadzic on Monday. A judge concluded he should be transferred to the war crimes tribunal in The Hague, although Karadzic now has three days in which to appeal the decision.
Karadzic had been questioned but, so far, ministers said, he had remained silent.
To become a new person, officials said, he used false documents and false identities. Most recently he lived in New Belgrade, a working-class neighbourhood of the capital that is known as a stronghold of Serbia's far-right Radical party.
"How convincing his false identity was, we can tell you that he has been freely walking in the city," Serbia's war crimes prosecutor, Vladimir Vukcevic, said yesterday. "Even the people he rented a flat from were unaware of who he was."
Last week, European Union peacekeepers, with support of local police, raided the Sarajevo apartment of Ljiljana Karadzic, the ex-politician's wife. They seized documents and materials as clues for their search.
In recent weeks, homes of other known supporters of Karadzic were also searched.
Then on Monday, police officers began to follow Karadzic for several hours before they swooped. There were rumours of the involvement of a foreign secret service, but this was vehemently denied by the Serbian government.
The exact location of Karadzic's arrest was not disclosed, but government officials said he was apprehended by Serbian secret police "as he travelled from one location to the other" not far from Belgrade. Some media reports said he was riding a bus when actually arrested.
Karadzic, who was president of the Bosnian Serb administration during the 1992-95 Bosnian war, went into hiding a year or so after being indicted in July 1995 by an international war crimes tribunal in the Srebrenica massacre that year.
He was also charged with genocide, persecutions and other crimes for killings of non-Serbs by forces under his command during and after attacks on towns throughout Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The charges state that his forces killed, tortured and raped some of the thousands of non-Serbs they funnelled into camps set up by the Bosnian Serb authorities.
In addition, he was charged with responsibility for the shelling and sniper shootings of civilians in Sarajevo during the 43-month siege of the city in which thousands were killed or wounded, including many women and children.
With files from Star wire services
