Radovan Karadžić

"The Serb people and myself together with it, have already won. The Serb Republic (RS, the Serb entity in Bosnia-Herzegovina) has been created, and the Serb people are free in their own state," Karadzic is quoted as saying, and adding:

The decision to sentence Radovan Karadzic to life in imprison is "appropriate in the interest of justice," Turkey's foreign minister said on March 20.

The wartime political leader of Serbs in Bosnia-Herzegovina was on Wednesday sentenced to life in prison by the Appeals Chamber of the Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals in The Hague.

The appeals verdict rendered on Wednesday changes the first-instance verdict, that in Match 2016 sentenced the first president of the Serb Republic (RS) to 40 years in prison.

Follow BIRN's reporters live for all the latest developments as the UN court in The Hague delivers its final verdict in the genocide and war crimes trial of former Bosnian Serb political leader Radovan Karadzic.

"Certain political forces in Bosnia and Herzegovina still side with convicted criminals and joint criminal enterprises, which are glorified, and genocide, which is not admitted. Such politics are alive in Bosnia and Herzegovina," Mehmedovic told BIRN.

On a weekday afternoon in the Serbian capital Belgrade, a small watering hole called Luda Kuca - Madhouse - is crammed with elderly but chatty regulars.

However he was acquitted of committing genocide in several other Bosnian municipalities in 1992.

Karadzic appealed against the verdict, insisting that there was "no evidence for the accusations concerning the intention to implement ethnic cleansing".

A Bosnian Serb man who has led months of protests accusing authorities of covering up what he says was the murder of his 21-year-old son was arrested on Tuesday in the main city of Bosnia's Republika Srpska entity, Banja Luka, police said.

Former Bosnian Serb political leader Radovan Karadzic asked the UN court in The Hague to grant him a provisional release until the final verdict in his trial next year.