ZAGREB/THE HAGUE, Jan 28 (Hina) - A former Croatian Serb rebel leader, Milan Martic, on Tuesday pleaded not guilty to counts in an extended indictment in which the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in
The Hague accuses him of ethnic cleansing in the Serb-held areas of Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina in the 1990s.
ZAGREB/THE HAGUE, Jan 28 (Hina) - A former Croatian Serb rebel
leader, Milan Martic, on Tuesday pleaded not guilty to counts in an
extended indictment in which the International Criminal Tribunal
for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague accuses him of ethnic
cleansing in the Serb-held areas of Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina
in the 1990s. #L#
"I plead not guilty", Martic reiterated every time after a Chinese
judge, Liu Daqun, read out each of the 19 new counts added to his
indictment in which the Croatian Serb leader is charged with
persecution, extermination, killings, attacks on civilians,
detention, harassment, cruelty, deportation and forcible
resettlements, destruction and plunder in the Croatian and Bosnian
areas which Serb insurgents held from 1991 to 1995.
The indictee also expressed hope that he and his lawyers "will
manage to prove" his innocence.
The previous indictment charged Martic only with the shelling of
Zagreb in May 1995, but last December the ICTY Prosecution extended
his indictment accusing him, as a former Yugoslav President
Slobodan Milosevic, of the participation in the joint criminal
endeavour from 1991 to 1995 with the aim of forcible removal of a
great part of the Croatian, Muslim and other non-Serb population
from approximately one third of Croatia's territory and from larger
parts of Bosnia so that they could annex it to a greater Serbia.
The indictment says that Martic personally took part in military
actions and crimes which armed units committed.
He is indicted for the extermination and killings of several
hundred Croatian, Muslim and non-Serb civilians.
The ICTY prosecution regards him accountable for the detention of
several hundred civilians in camps with inhumane conditions in
Croatia and outside, including detention camps in Knin, Titova
Korenica (Croatia) and in Bosanski Novi and Prnjavor (Bosnia).
The extended indictment alleges that he took restrictive and
discriminatory measures against the civilian population, such as
deportation and the forcible expelling of tens of thousands of
Croats and other non-Serbs as well as the plunder and the
destruction of their assets and cultural, historical and religious
facilities.
(hina) ms sb