Red-Faced Serbians Admit to Arresting Archbishop of Canterbury by Mistake

The government of Serbia apologised today after discovering that the man with a beard whom they arrested yesterday, thinking he was fugitive Bosnian war criminal Radovan Karadic, was in fact the Archbishop of Canterbury.

“Karadic is a master of disguise,” admitted red-faced officials. “And so, when sharp-eyed police officers saw this bizarre character with large glasses and a silly beard climbing aboard a bus, they thought they had finally tracked down Europe’s most wanted mass-murderer. However, it turns out that he is in fact Rowan Atkinson, your lovable British comedy character famous for his improbable gaffes.”

Bishops attending the Lambeth Conference in Canterbury expressed surprise at the presence of the leader of the world’s Anglican Communion in the Balkans.

“Who’s chairing our conference then?” demanded the Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu. After a brief scuffle on the podium, a dishevelled figure in torn vestments emerged from beneath a pile of bishops, to stand revealed as the evil terrorist mastermind Osama bin-Laden.

“Curses! Foiled again,” hissed the scheming super-villain. “I planned to bring together the disillusioned factions of the Anglican Church in the hope of uniting them into a globally-feared fundamentalist army, ready to unleash a terrifying wave of tea and biscuits around the world. Now my scheme is in tatters.”

The Archbishop of Sudan, Daniel Deng, has led calls for the Serbs to hand Rowan Williams over, to stand trial for his role in overseeing the bloody civil war that is raging within the Anglican churches.

“For many years our community lived peacefully,” he said. “High Churchmen used to co-exist side by side with the notorious Happy-Clappy Brigade, while thousands of gay clergy quietly went about their business without drawing attention to themselves. Then Dr Williams allowed the militant gay forces of Bishop Gene Robinson to rampage unchecked throughout the church, reviving our long-buried traditions of bigotry and intolerance and leading us into this terrible civil war. He should be tried by the International Ducking Stool in the Hague.”