The wheels of justice turn slowly but they grind nevertheless. Last week, Radovan Karadzic, the "Butcher of Bosnia," was found guilty of genocide and other crimes against humanity committed in the Bosnian War from 1992 to 1995, and sentenced to 40 years in prison — effectively a death sentence for the 70-year-old man. His conviction will provide some solace to the thousands of people who survived his terror and to those who lost loved ones to the savagery he helped perpetrate. Sadly, many Serbs prefer to see him as a victim and proof that the court was engaged in victor's justice.

The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia is an ad hoc, U.N.-established court empowered to hear trials related to crimes committed during the breakup of that country, a period that lasted from 1991 to 2001. During Karadzic's 500-day trial, the court heard evidence from 586 witnesses and saw more than 11,000 exhibits. The verdict was a year in the making. On March 24, the judges found him guilty of 10 of 11 charges — charges that included extermination, persecution, forcible transfer, terror and hostage taking.

The tribunal found that Karadzic committed the crimes through participation in four "joint criminal enterprises," among which was a plot from October 1991 to November 1995 "to permanently remove Bosnian Muslims and Bosnian Croats from Bosnian Serb-claimed territory." While the atrocities were committed over an extended period of time, the most appalling act was the Srebrenica massacre, during which more than 7,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys were murdered by the Bosnian Serb forces that he commanded.