Members of the U.S. Army Old Guard place a flag at each of the over 220,000 graves of fallen U.S. military service members buried at Arlington National Cemetery, May 24, 2012. Memorial Day will be commemorated this weekend across the United States.    REUTERS/Jason Reed  (UNITED STATES - Tags: MILITARY)

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Our day's top images, in-depth photo essays and offbeat slices of life. See the best of Reuters photography.  See more | Photo caption 

Members of the U.S. Navy Blue Angels fly over the World Trade Center in lower Manhattan as part of the 25th annual Fleet Week celebration in New York, May 23, 2012.  REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz (UNITED STATES - Tags: MILITARY ANNIVERSARY TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY)

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Students show emotions at the 2012 Joplin High School commencement ceremony inside the Leggett and Plant Athletic Center at Missouri Southern State University in Joplin, Missouri, May 21, 2012.           REUTERS/Larry Downing    (UNITED STATES - Tags: POLITICS EDUCATION)

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FACTBOX: U.N. court readies for Radovan Karadzic

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Mon Jul 21, 2008 8:53pm EDT

(Reuters) - Bosnian Serb wartime president Radovan Karadzic, one of the world's most wanted men for planning and ordering genocide in the 1992-95 Bosnia war, was arrested on Monday after 11 years on the run.

Karadzic, still seen by militant nationalists as a defender of Serbdom following the collapse of Yugoslavia, was expected to be transferred quickly to the custody of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague.

Following are key facts about the court and some of its major cases:

THE COURT:

* The ICTY was established by the U.N. Security Council in May 1993.

* Based in The Hague, it was the first international body for the prosecution of war crimes since the Nuremberg and Tokyo trials held in the aftermath of World War Two.

* The tribunal has jurisdiction over individuals responsible for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity in the territory of the former Yugoslavia after January 1, 1991.

THE CASES:

* The tribunal has indicted 161 people. At present, 37 indicted war criminals are in custody in The Hague.

* There are 27 people currently on trial. Sixteen others are at various stages of proceedings and dozens of others have been passed to courts in Serbia, Bosnia, and Croatia. Two people are at still at large - Radovan Karadzic's military commander Ratko Mladic, also charged with the genocide of Bosnian Muslims and Goran Hadzic, a Croatian Serb local official, indicted for planning the murder and deportations of hundreds of non-Serbs in the self-declared Republic of Serbian Krajina in Croatia.

* Former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic died in detention in March 2006, just months before a verdict was due in his four-year war crimes trial on 66 counts of genocide, crimes against humanity or war crimes in indictments covering the conflicts in Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo.

* Radislav Krstic, commander of the Bosnian Serb army's Drina Corps in 1995, was the first person convicted of genocide by the court, in a landmark verdict in August 2001. He was jailed for 46 years, but his sentence was later cut to 35, and the offence to one of aiding and abetting genocide.

* Former Bosnian Serb army commander Vidoje Blagojevic was also found guilty, in 2005, of aiding and abetting genocide, and sentenced to 18 years.

* Milan Babic, ex-leader of the rebel Serbs in Croatia's Krajina region, was jailed for 13 years in 2004 for his role in the "ethnic cleansing" of almost 80,000 Croats in 1991. He was the first notable indictee to admit his guilt, and agreed to testify against Milosevic. He committed suicide in 2006.

* His fellow Krajina Serb leader, Milan Martic, was jailed for 35 years in 2007 for his role in the same expulsions.

* Momcilo Krajisnik, former head of the Bosnian Serb parliament, was sentenced to 27 years in prison on Wednesday for a campaign of ethnic cleansing against Bosnian Muslims and Croats, but acquitted of genocide.

* Former Bosnian Serb president Biljana Plavsic was convicted in 2003 by the ICTY for her part in the persecution of Bosnian Muslims in the war from 1992 to 1995, and is serving an 11-year sentence.

* Vojislav Seselj, leader of Serbia's ultranationalist Radical Party, is currently on trial for charges including murder, torture and persecution of non-Serbs in a joint criminal enterprise with Milosevic to create a "Greater Serbia" including large parts of Bosnia and Croatia.

* Ramush Haradinaj, a Kosovo Albanian who served as a regional commander of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) during a 1998-99 war with Serbian forces before becoming Kosovo's prime minister, was tried on charges of responsibility for torture, murder, rape and deportation. He was cleared of all war crimes charges and crimes against humanity last April.

Sources: Reuters, www.un.org/icty/

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