Bosnia: UN war crimes tribunal to free former Serb leader
The Hague, 15 Sept. (AKI) – The United Nations war crimes tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) is to free former Bosnian Serb leader Biljana Plavsic. Plavsic, 79, will be released at the end of October after serving two-thirds of her sentence due to 'good behaviour' and health problems, the court said. Plavsic was sentenced to 11 years in jail by the ICTY in 2003 and is serving a jail term in Sweden. She surrendered to the tribunal in 2001 and first denied all charges against her. She later later pleaded guilty to a single count of persecution, a crime against humanity perpetrated as part of an ethnic cleansing campaign to drive Muslims and Croats out of Serb-controlled areas of Bosnia. Her guilty plea came as part of a plea bargain to have other charges, including genocide, dropped. She is one of few suspects to admit their crimes to the tribunal and to have expressed remorse. Plavsic, a biologist, was a member of the highest Bosnian Serb leadership during the war and served as vice-president of the Bosnian Serb entity. She replaced Serb entity president Radovan Karadzic in September 1996, after he was forced by the international community to step down and quit politics, but was indicted herself in 2000. Karadzic was arrested in Belgrade a year ago and is awaiting trial before The Hague tribunal on charges of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. Court president Patrick Robinson praised Plavsic for “accepting responsibility at an early stage of the trial” and for testifying against the former speaker of the Serb entity's parliament , Momcilo Krajisnik. Krajisnik was sentenced to 27 years for crimes against Bosnian Muslims, including persecution and deportations, but an appeals panel reduced the sentence to 20 years in March this year. http://www.adnkronos.com/AKI/English/Politics/?id=3.0.3773121053 __._,_.___
