The Butcher's Trail: How the Search for Balkan War Criminals Became the World's Most Successful Manhunt

Julian Borger

Jan 2016 · Other Press, LLC

About this ebook

A “riveting and important” story of heroism and justice: How—and against what odds—the perpetrators of Balkan genocide were captured by the most successful manhunt in history (TIME)

“. . . adds greatly to our understanding of how international criminal justice has evolved and offers lessons for future war crimes investigations.” —Newsweek

Written with a thrilling narrative pull, The Butcher’s Trail chronicles the pursuit and capture of the Balkan war criminals indicted by the International Criminal Tribunal in The Hague. Borger recounts how Radovan Karadžić and Ratko Mladić—both now on trial in The Hague—were finally tracked down, and describes the intrigue behind the arrest of Slobodan Milosevic, the Yugoslav president who became the first head of state to stand before an international tribunal for crimes perpetrated in a time of war. Based on interviews with former special forces soldiers, intelligence officials, and investigators from a dozen countries—most speaking about their involvement for the first time—this book reconstructs a fourteen-year manhunt carried out almost entirely in secret.

Indicting the worst war criminals that Europe had known since the Nazi era, the ICTY ultimately accounted for all 161 suspects on its wanted list, a feat never before achieved in political and military history.

About the author

Julian Borger is the diplomatic editor for The Guardian. He covered the Bosnian War for the BBC andThe Guardian, and returned to the Balkans to report on the Kosovo conflict in 1999.  He has also served as The Guardian’s Middle East correspondent and its Washington bureau chief. Borger was part of theGuardian team that won the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for public service journalism for its coverage of the Snowden files on mass surveillance. He was also on the team awarded the 2013 Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE) medal and the Paul Foot Special Investigation Award in the UK.