THE HAGUE/ZAGREB, Dec 18 (Hina) - The defence of former Bosnian Serb president Biljana Plavsic requested the Hague war crimes tribunal's trial chamber on Wednesday to sentence their client to no more than eight years after the
prosecution requested a prison term ranging between 15 and 25 years.
THE HAGUE/ZAGREB, Dec 18 (Hina) - The defence of former Bosnian Serb
president Biljana Plavsic requested the Hague war crimes
tribunal's trial chamber on Wednesday to sentence their client to
no more than eight years after the prosecution requested a prison
term ranging between 15 and 25 years. #L#
Plavsic will be released on parole pending the sentence, which
presiding judge Richard May announced would be passed as soon as
possible.
Defence attorney Robert Pavic said that given Plavsic's age, 72,
any sentence over eight years would be tantamount to lifetime
imprisonment.
Earlier on, Plavsic denied speculation that she had settled with
the U.N. tribunal to avoid lifetime imprisonment, saying that given
her age even a ten-year sentence would constitute lifetime
imprisonment.
In October she owned up to persecution as a crime against humanity.
The Hague's prosecution, in exchange, dropped the other counts of
her indictment, including genocide.
Plavsic is the most senior official who has admitted to war crimes
and the only woman indicted by the International Criminal Tribunal
for the former Yugoslavia.
A previously classified document introduced on Monday revealed
that Plavsic gravely incriminated former Yugoslav President
Slobodan Milosevic as the initiator and executor of the ethnic
cleansing policy in Bosnia. As his accomplices, she cited former
Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic and his right-hand man Momcilo
Krajisnik, as well as former Bosnian Serb military commander Ratko
Mladic.
The defence witnesses who spoke in favour of Plavsic were former
Republika Srpska Prime Minister Milorad Dodik, who spoke of
Plavsic's pacifist role, and the international community's first
high representative to Bosnia, Carl Bildt, who spoke of her
positive attitude towards the Dayton peace accords and her efforts
to preserve a possible future coexistence of Serbs, Croats and
Muslims in Sarajevo. Bildt even downplayed her role by saying she
was not a significant figure in the Bosnian Serb leadership.
There was also the former OSCE Mission chief to Bosnia, Robert
Frowick, who spoke of Plavsic's cooperation with the international
community in the implementation of the Dayton deals.
Former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright took the stand as
witness for both the prosecution and the defence. She commended
Plavsic's determination to insist on the implementation of the
Dayton accords and said her admission of guilt would be important
for other war crimes trials. Albright, however, recalled that
during the war Plavsic was a Serb nationalist and spokeswoman for
the Bosnian Serb policy.
Nobel prize winner Elie Wiesel, while on the witness stand,
wondered how it was possible for a prominent intellectual such as
Plavsic to have become a criminal and live with such a burden on the
conscience.
Plavsic holds a Master of Science degree, a doctor's degree in
philosophy, is a biologist by training and a former Fulbright
scholar who studied in the United States. She was also the dean of
the Sarajevo University.
(hina) ha sb