Bosnian war crimes fugitive Radovan Karadzic will never surrender to the UN war crimes tribunal, his wife said today.
"No one from our family can make that decision and tell Radovan to surrender," said Ms Ljiljana Zelen-Karadzic.
As the wartime leader of the Bosnian Serbs, Karadzic is accused of having masterminded - together with former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic - Bosnia's 1992-95 war, which claimed 260,000 lives and left 1.8 million people homeless.
Karadzic (58) and his wartime military chief, General Ratko Mladic, are the two most-wanted suspects sought by the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague, The Netherlands.
"This is a political court that only tries Serbs. Radovan told me, the last time we spoke, that he does not acknowledge this court as a legal court," Ms Zelen-Karadzic said adding that she has not seen or spoken to her husband for several years.
Since being indicted for genocide in 1995, Karadzic has been on the run and is believed to be hiding in disguise in the mountains of Bosnia and surrounded by armed bodyguards.
EU peacekeepers deployed in Bosnia have a standing order to arrest him. The leadership of the Bosnian Serb mini-state, which together with a Muslim-Croat federation comprises post-war Bosnia, is under constant pressure by the West to hand over Karadzic.