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Former Bosnian Serb President Pleads Not Guilty At War Crimes Court
THE HAGUE (News Agencies) - Former Bosnian Serb president Biljana Plavsic, accused of helping to launch a brutal campaign of ethnic cleansing against Bosnian Muslims, pleaded not guilty Thursday to war crimes charges before a U.N. tribunal.
Dressed in a mauve suit and flanked by two female guards, the somber but composed silver-haired 70-year-old answered "not guilty" to each of the nine charges of genocide and crimes against humanity read out by Judge Richard May.
A former ally of notorious Bosnian Serb wartime leader Radovan Karadzic, Plavsic is the first woman and the highest-ranking politician to go before the court on charges stemming from the 1992-1995 Bosnian conflict.
The charges against her included "genocide," "complicity in genocide," "crimes against humanity," "grave breach of the Geneva conventions" on war crimes and "violations of the law or customs of war."
Plavsic, who held the Bosnian Serb presidency from 1996 to 1998, flew to The Hague on Tuesday and surrendered the following day to officials at the U.N. war crimes tribunal located here.
The indictment said she, along with Karadzic and former Bosnian Serb assembly leader Momcilo Krajisnik, "initiated and implemented a course of conduct which included the creation of impossible conditions of life."
Those conditions involved "persecution and terror tactics, that would have the effect of encouraging non-Serbs to leave, the deportation of those who were reluctant to leave and the liquidation of others," the indictment added.
"Biljana Plavsic... condoned and publicly congratulated the forces that had taken part in the perpetration" of the crimes, the statement read.
Carlaz del Ponte, chief prosecutor of the court, known as the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), said the indictment had been issued under seal on April 7, 2000, for crimes committed jointly by Plavsic and Krajisnik.
Plavsic, a former biology teacher, was on the ICTY's secret list of suspects. Those on the list are only revealed once they have been arrested and indicted.
Krajisnik, who has been in ICTY custody since April, is accused of being responsible for genocide committed against Bosnia's non-Serb population, when nationalist militias carried out a brutal campaign of ethnic cleansing.
An estimated 200,000 people died during the war in Bosnia and hundreds of thousands more were forced to flee their homes.
The indictment said Plavsic was "individually responsible for the crimes alleged against her in this indictment," which it said were committed between July 1, 1991, and December 30, 1992, when she served as an aide to Karadzic.
Del Ponte said Wednesday that Plavsic had surrendered freely and willingly.
An ultranationalist who openly accepted ethnic cleansing during the conflict, Plavsic trod a more moderate line after she was elected president of the Bosnian Serb entity, one of two Bosnian government bodies, in 1996.
She later condemned Karadzic as corrupt and began cooperating with the West, a stance that won development aid for the Bosnian Serbs and made her a key contact for international negotiators.
Plavsic slowly disappeared from public life after an ultranationalist candidate defeated her in elections in 1998. She gave up her seat in the Bosnian Serb parliament on December 14th.
Karadzic and Bosnian Serb military commander Ratko Mladic - along with ousted hardline Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic, Serbian President Milan Milutinovic and former Yugoslav defense minister Dragoljub Ojdanic - are wanted by the ICTY on war crimes charges but are still at large.
During Thursday's hearing, Plavsic's lawyer, Krstan Simic, raised what he said was a "serious" problem regarding her "unacceptable" detention in a male prison.
He also requested the pre-trial release of his client, so she can spend the period back home in Bosnia.
"The Bosnian Serb government is ready to provide the guarantees to be responsible if she escapes, which seems very unlikely given that Mrs. Plavsic gave herself up voluntarily," he said.
"We are also ready to obtain guarantees from the Serbian government that they deliver her to the tribunal if she flees to Serbia," Simic added.
In Banja Luka, a spokesman for the Bosnian Serb government said it would ensure that Plavsic would not escape if allowed to return to Bosnia.
Rajko Vasic told reporters that she would not be permitted to leave the territory of the Republika Srpska (RS), the official name of the Bosnian Serb entity.
"We hope that The Hague tribunal will accept our guarantees and will act in a way that is best for Plavsic," Vasic said, adding that the RS would send a formal statement to the ICTY later in the day.
The ICTY has already allowed the conditional release of three Bosnian Serb indictees after the RS government guaranteed that they would not flee.
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