As Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic waits to appear before the United Nations war crimes tribunal in The Hague, Serbian media is full of speculation about his mysterious disappearance 1996.

Bulgarian Focus news agency published a summery of publications in Serbian and Bosnian media suggesting that in 1996 Karadzic made a secret deal with former US envoy to Bosnia Richard Holbrooke who presided over the signing of the Dayton Peace Accords in 1995 that saw the end of three-and-a-half years of war in the former Yugoslavian republic of Bosnia. 

Focus quoted Serbian Poitika daily, according to which Karadzic told Serbia's prosecutor-general that Holbrooke promised him that he would not be sent to The Hague tribunal.

The condition for that was for Karadzic to disappear from public life as he did in 1996.

Radio Televisia Serbia said that Karadzic told this to the prosecutor just before being sent to The Hague on July 30 2008.

The TV station quotes former Alexa Buha, former foreign minister of Republika Srpska, who confirmed that such a Karadzic-Holbrooke agreement did exist.

“I was there when it happened in 1996 together with Holbrooke,” he said as quoted by Focus. “Holbrooke personally waved the agreement in front of me” Buha said. Furthermore, Buha said that such an agreement was also reached between Karadzic and former US state secretary Madeleine Albright.

In an interview for Bosnian Dnevni Avaz newspaper Holbrooke denied having signed any kind of agreement with Karadzic and said that he was ready to testify against Buha's claims.