Ljiljana Zelen Karadžić, the wife of the first president of Republika Srpska, Radovan Karadžić, passed away today in East Sarajevo in her 81st year of life. The news was confirmed by multiple sources, and the family announced that the place and date of the funeral will be published later.
Born on November 27, 1945, in Sarajevo, Ljiljana Zelen belonged to a prominent Sarajevo Serbian family. She graduated from the Faculty of Medicine in her hometown and specialized in neuropsychiatry (psychiatry), a profession she shared with her husband Radovan. In her marriage to him, entered into during their student days, she had two children – daughter Sonja and son Aleksandar (Saša).
During the 90s, at the time of the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina, she became one of the most recognizable figures of the Karadžić family. From 1993 to 2002, she held the position of president of the Red Cross of Republika Srpska.
After Radovan Karadžić, under pressure from the Dayton Agreement and the international community, withdrew from public life and went underground in 1996, Ljiljana Zelen Karadžić remained in the public eye as his most vocal defender.
In numerous interviews and statements, she described him as a victim of political persecution and pressure from the West, and herself and her family as those who suffer the consequences of that persecution. For years, she lived under United States sanctions (OFAC list), together with her children, which further complicated the family’s existence.
The most striking moment of her public appearance occurred on July 28, 2005, when in an emotional address via regional television stations, visibly shaken and with tears in her eyes, she publicly called on her husband to surrender to the Hague Tribunal.
She said she had to choose between loyalty to her husband and the protection of her children and grandchildren, and that the family lives in a “constant atmosphere of worry, pain, and suffering.” At the time, many interpreted that appeal as a sign that pressure was beginning to grow even within the immediate family due to the long-term escape of the first president of Srpska.
After Radovan Karadžić’s arrest in Belgrade in 2008, Ljiljana withdrew from public life. In recent years, she rarely appeared in public – only occasionally through family photos shared by her daughter Sonja, most often on the occasion of birthdays or family moments.
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Source: Euronews; Photo: EPA / Fehim Demir