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Belgrade: Hardline nationalists were gathering to show their support to war crimes suspect Radovan Karadzic on Tuesday.
Hardliners, who see him as a hero attacked by anti-Serb propaganda, said they expect tens of thousands to demonstrate peacefully in a "all-Serb" afternoon rally.
"This rally will be a symbol of resistance, a symbol of the strength of those who love freedom more than anything," said Aleksandar Vucic of the nationalist Radical Party.
"We'll continue resisting dictatorship in Serbia, we'll continue raising the question of whose paramilitary forces arrested Radovan Karadzic, how and why," Vucic said.
Karadzic, who faces charges of genocide during the 1992-1995 Bosnian war, was arrested last week in Serbia after 11 years on the run. He is now being held in a Belgrade prison awaiting extradition.
Authorities said that Karadzic's transfer to the war crimes tribunal in The Hague will be carried out covertly to avoid media attention and protesters.
Security service sources say there are dozens of options for moving him unobtrusively, involving disguised vehicles, secret exits, dawn transfers and decoy motorcades to fool the television crews staking out the prison, court and airport.
"Only ten people in Serbia know exactly what will happen," one senior government source said. Another said it would not be a public spectacle. "It will be done as discreetly as possible."
Karadzic has been indicted for planning the massacre of some 8,000 Bosnian Muslims in Srebrenica and the 43-month siege of Sarajevo, where more than 11,000 people died from shelling, sniper fire, malnutrition and illness.
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