THE HAGUE, Jan 20(Hina) - Former Croatian Serb rebel leader Milan Babic is due to enter his plea to charges of war crimes against humanity and violations of laws or customs of war before the Hague war crimes tribunal on
Wednesday.
THE HAGUE, Jan 20(Hina) - Former Croatian Serb rebel leader Milan Babic
is due to enter his plea to charges of war crimes against humanity and
violations of laws or customs of war before the Hague war crimes
tribunal on Wednesday.#L#
Babic refused to enter a plea at his first appearance before the
tribunal on November 26, taking advantage of the possibility, granted
by the tribunal's rules, to do so within 30 days.
Babic's attorney Peter Michael Mueller said in November his client
might settle with the prosecution and admit guilt. The Prosecutor's
Office today declined to say whether an agreement on the admission of
guilt had been reached with Babic.
An indictment filed on 6 November 2003 charged the 48-year-old Babic
with one count of persecution on political, racial and religious
grounds as a crime against humanity, and with four counts of murder,
cruel treatment, wanton destruction of villages and other civilian
facilities as violations of laws or customs of war.
Babic held a series of top posts in the authorities of rebel Croatian
Serbs between 1991 and 1995, which is why the indictment names him
among the participants in the joint criminal enterprise whose goal was
the forcible and permanent removal of the majority of the Croat and
other non-Serb population from roughly one-third of Croatia's
territory so that it could become part of a new Serb-dominated state.
In 2002 Babic testified at the Hague tribunal trial of former Yugoslav
President Slobodan Milosevic, accusing him of having caused the war in
Croatia and of having controlled and armed the Serb units.
(Hina) ha sb