The United States protected Bosnian Serb alleged war criminal Radovan Karadzic after the conflict ended, according to a deal between the CIA and the man dubbed “the Butcher of Bosnia.” However, the CIA found out that Karadzic broke the terms of the deal and, according to the wartime leader, they tried to eliminated him, Serb newspaper Blic reported Saturday, quoting a US intelligence source.

The report published by the Serb newspaper is manly similar to what Mr. Karadzic himself mentioned in a document submitted to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY). The main idea is that Mr. Karadzic was guaranteed immunity from the United States, while his part of the agreement was to keep a low profile. The Bosnian Serb former politic leader also mentioned that he negotiated the deal with US peace negotiator in Bosnia, Richard Holbrooke, who promised him that he won’t have to face trial if he withdrew from public life. Holbrooke denied the allegations.

The source quoted by Blic daily newspaper also said that it has Holbrooke's admission of verbal guarantees given to Karadzic from the highest level of the US. Another juicy piece of information given by the source is that in 2002, at the time of the (November general) elections in Bosnia, Mr. Karadzic was still at the helm of the party he had founded - SDS (the Serbian Democratic Party. The CIA found that Mr. Karadzic broke the deal.

"In 2000 there was a SDS meeting in (the eastern Bosnian town of) Bijeljina, chaired personally by Karadzic. He was providing instructions to members and the leadership who to be replaced and who to be appointed to which position," it said.

"In America they went crazy realizing Karadzic was making a fool of them," it said, adding that "the Americans and CIA then withdrew the informal protection enjoyed by Karadzic."

Mr. Karadzic is charged with genocide, complicity in genocide, extermination, murder, willful killing, persecutions, deportation, inhumane acts, terror against civilians and hostage-taking. Along with Bosnian Serb military commander Ratko Mladic, Karadzic stands accused of atrocities against Muslims and Croats during the 1992-95 Bosnia conflict. Both men are linked to the most dreadful episodes of the 1992-1995 Bosnian war - the 44-month siege of Sarajevo and the Srebrenica massacre in which as many as 8,000 Muslims, the worst atrocity in Europe since World War Two.