War crime -- Bosnian Serb ex-leader pleads not guilty

War crime -- Bosnian Serb ex-leader pleads not guilty
REUTERS

JAN 11: Former Bosnian Serb president Biljana Plavsic, a hardline nationalist who broke ranks and helped moderates to power, pleaded "not guilty" to war crimes including genocide at the United Nations Tribunal on Thursday.

Plavsic, the first woman publicly indicted by the tribunal and the second key figure from the former Bosnian Serb leadership to come to The Hague, voluntarily surrendered to the court on Wednesday. She faces nine counts of war crimes.

"I have received the indictment on Wednesday. I have understood it fully and I plead not guilty to all counts on that indictment," the silver-haired biology professor said in her first appearance before the court.

Smartly dressed in a lavender suit and sweater and flankedby two female guards, the 70-year-old then answered "not guilty" to each count as British judge Richard May read them out.

During the 1992-95 Bosnian war Plavsic was deputy to Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic. She took over from him when he was forced from office in 1996.

The indictment says Plavsic, together with other members ofthe Serbian Democratic Party, served on the war presidency of the Bosnian Serb republic and from July 1991 to December 1992 planned or ordered the ethnic cleansing of tens of thousands of Bosnian Muslims and Croats.

The indictment details a huge catalogue of events in whichnon-Serbs were executed, tortured and detained in inhuman conditions as the brutal purge gathered pace.

As one of three acting presidents of the Bosnian Serbrepublic, the indictment says, Plavsic knew of the criminal acts and had the power to punish perpetrators.

"Having knowledge of such crimes, Biljana Plavsic instead condoned and publicly congratulated the forces that had taken part," the indictment says.

Prosecutors plan to try Plavsic alongside wartime Bosnian Serb parliament speaker Momcilo Krajisnik, arrested last April and to date the leading figure held by the tribunal.

Plavsic's surrender is a major coup for prosecutors as they close the net on more powerful figures up the Bosnian Serb chain of command.

Karadzic and his Bosnian Serb military commander Ratko Mladic are the tribunal's top Bosnian Serb indictees. Chief Prosecutor Carla Del Ponte has urged them to follow Plavsic's example.

After the pleas, Plavsic's lawyer Krstan Simic tried to convince the judges that his client should not be held at the tribunal's detention unit. The unit currently houses 35 inmates and Plavsic is the only woman.

"Should an area be appropriately adjusted for Mrs Plavsic, she would still be living in a male environment and would be in absolute isolation. We all know what that would mean for the accused. Solitary detention is punishment and this is not something that has been considered in this case," Simic said.

Judge May told Simic that was a matter upon which the tribunal's president, not the trial chamber, should rule.

Chief prosecutor Del Ponte said her office were aware of the problem and would seek a solution.

The tribunal does not grant bail, but can grant provisional release in special cases as it has done for four accused so far.

Croat lawyer Goran Mikulicic, speaking to reuters after the hearing, said he expected Plavsic to ask tribunal president Claude Jorda to be allowed to return to Bosnia.

"The main purpose of the detention centre is to ensure the accused are present at the trial. She will surely be present because she appeared here voluntarily," he said.

Simic himself appeared briefly after the hearing but hurried off for a meeting with prosecutors without making a comment.