ZAGREB/THE HAGUE, Sept 16 (Hina) - After Bosnian Serb Mitar Rasevic refused on Tuesday to enter his plea before the Hague war crimes tribunal for the former Yugoslavia to the killing and torture of non-Serbs in a Foca prison during
the Bosnian war, the U.N. court recorded that the defendant had pleaded not guilty.
ZAGREB/THE HAGUE, Sept 16 (Hina) - After Bosnian Serb Mitar Rasevic
refused on Tuesday to enter his plea before the Hague war crimes
tribunal for the former Yugoslavia to the killing and torture of
non-Serbs in a Foca prison during the Bosnian war, the U.N. court
recorded that the defendant had pleaded not guilty. #L#
This was the second time Rasevic refused to enter his plea.
A former sociology professor, he is charged with crimes against
humanity, violations of the laws and customs of war, and grave
breaches of Geneva Conventions committed when he was guard
commander at a prison in north-eastern Bosnia's Foca in 1992-4.
After Serb forces seized Foca in 1992, almost 760 residents, mostly
Muslims, were detained at the prison where Rasevic was chief to at
least 37 guards.
According to the indictment, Rasevic ordered the guards to beat the
prisoners for the slightest infractions of prison rules, and that
an undetermined number of prisoners died as a result of beatings and
torture.
(hina) ha