Double Life of the Butcher of Bosnia

BELGRADE, Serbia, July 23, 2008 — -- For 13 years, investigators combed the mountainous regions of eastern Bosnia, looking for Radovan Karadzic. A popular theory for much of that time was that the fugitive Bosnian-Serb leader was hidden away in a monastery, protected by Orthodox monks.

But it turned out to be the colorless boulevards of New Belgrade that provided a hiding place for Europe's most wanted man. He found an effective alter ego, in the guise of an Orthodox mystic.

New Belgrade bares no resemblance to Pale, Karadzic's war-time home in Serb-held Bosnia. But even in New Belgrade, Karadzic managed to find a place that felt like home, the "Madhouse" cafe, not far from his two-bedroom apartment. The cafe is covered with pictures of Karadzic and his contemporaries, Bosnian Serb war-time military commander Ratko Mladic and Slobodan Milosevic.

Misko Kovijanic, the cafe owner and a longtime supporter of Karadzic, told ABCNews.com that Karadzic was a regular guest who liked to have a glass of red wine and enjoyed chanting and gusle music (traditional lyrelike folk instrument).

"He would always sit at the table from which he could see the photographs of Karadzic and Mladic," recalls Kovijanic, who is part of a small group of supporters. "We were singing of him, in front of him, without knowing that he was Karadzic."

People who live on Juri Gagarin Street, a street of gray Communist-era apartment buildings across the Sava River, felt certain that their new neighbor was some kind of mystical guru.

"He moved to our neighborhood early last year. I thought he was a spiritual man," said Danica Jankovic, a sixth floor neighbor of the man who assumed the alias Dr. Dragan or David Dabic. "His dense white beard and distinctive long hair, his long periods of complete silence, and the fact that he was into meditation left me with no doubt. I still cannot believe his true identity."

Unrecognizable, with long white hair, a long beard and 40 pounds lighter, Karadzic, under the new name, appears to have led a very different life than one would have expected from one of the world's most wanted fugitives.

He held lectures as an expert on meditation and health in front of cameras at seminars around the country. He had his own Facebook page, with a listing of 147 friends. He contributed articles to a magazine and offered medical advice on his Web site. The site promoted his David Wellbeing Program, based on the use of "human quantum energy," which says that people are "programmed" to live to between 120 and 130 years, an age that could be reached by those who had his treatments.