Former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, sentenced to life in prison by the international tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague in 2019, is being moved to Britain from the Netherlands to serve out the rest of his sentence.

Karadzic, now 75, was convicted of war crimes in 2016 and given a 40-year sentence for his role in the massacre at Srebrenica and other crimes during the Yugoslavian civil war but this was revised up to ‘life’ on appeal two years ago.

Karadzic came to power after the break-up of Yugoslavia following the death of dictator Josip Broz Tito. The resulting conflict lasted for ten years and killed an estimated 140,000 people, including 8,000 Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica who were being guarded by Dutch peacekeeping forces.

The British government announced that Karadzic would be moved to the UK this week, at the request of the body which replaced the tribunal after it was shut down.

The United Kingdom signed a sentence enforcement agreement with the tribunal in March 2004, allowing for sentences to be enforced in the UK, foreign minister Dominic Raab said in a statement.

Karadzic is currently being held in the UN’s detention unit at the Dutch state prison in Scheveningen. Former Liberian president Charles Taylor was also held in the penitentiary until his transfer to a UK prison in 2013.