THE HAGUE/ZAGREB, Oct 8 (Hina) - Bosnian Serb Ranko Cesic on Wednesday pleaded guilty to all 12 counts of an indictment which the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) issued against him. The indictee
confessed to the 12 counts including murder and sexual abuse of non-Serbs who were detained in a camp in the northern Bosnian town of Brcko when Serb extremists took control over that port on the right bank of the Sava river.
THE HAGUE/ZAGREB, Oct 8 (Hina) - Bosnian Serb Ranko Cesic on
Wednesday pleaded guilty to all 12 counts of an indictment which the
International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY)
issued against him. The indictee confessed to the 12 counts
including murder and sexual abuse of non-Serbs who were detained in
a camp in the northern Bosnian town of Brcko when Serb extremists
took control over that port on the right bank of the Sava river. #L#
At a special hearing held on Wednesday in The Hague, Cesic changed
his statement of last year when he entered not-guilty plea. After
his agreement with the ICTY Prosecution, Cesic, a former local
police officer, admitted murdering 10 Bosnian Muslims and sexually
assaulting other detainees in the concentration camp set in Luka
(port premises) and the sports hall in Brcko.
The indictee confessed to forcing two Muslim brothers to beat each
other and perform sexual acts on each other at gunpoint before other
detained men in 11 May 1992.
Cesic said he was guilty and admitted that he had been aware of his
behaviour, namely that he had intentionally killed the prisoners.
The prosecution asks the tribunal to sentence him to between 13 and
18 years in prison, and he also assumed the obligation to appear as a
prosecution witness at other trials in The Hague.
Cesic, who is expected to be sentenced in coming months, is the 11th
indictee to plead guilty after reaching plea agreement with the
ICTY Prosecution.
The first indictment which the ICTY issued against Cesic, who was
nabbed in Serbia in 2002, cited him as one of defendants in the joint
indictment in which the prime indictee was Goran Jelisic, the Luka
camp's commander who styled himself the "Serb Adolf Hitler".
Jelisic, charged with genocide in the indictment which comprised 77
counts of accusations, was sentenced to 40 years in jail in 1999.
Thousands of local Muslims (Bosniaks) and Croats were detained in
hangars of the port at the Sava river in Brcko from May to July 1992.
They were kept in inhumane conditions and were brutally
interrogated, harassed and killed.
(hina) ms