Biljana Plavsic, 72, Subdued to Pressure, Milosevic Stood Up

“I plead guilty,” Bosnian Serb wartime leader Biljana Plavsic said speaking by video-link from a tribunal office in Yugoslavia yesterday. Thus, Plavsic is the first high-ranking suspect who pleaded guilty to crimes against humanity during the Balkan crisis in 1991. Meanwhile, Slobodan Milosevic started harsh disputes with Mesic, and judges had to interrupt him several times.

“I plead guilty,” Bosnian Serb wartime leader Biljana Plavsic said speaking by video-link from a tribunal office in Yugoslavia yesterday. Thus, as BBC reports, Plavsic is the first high-ranking suspect who pleaded guilty to crimes against humanity during the Balkan crisis in 1991.

After the ex-president pleaded guilty to genocide and war crimes, prosecutor dropped all other charges against her. Plavsic was a close brother-in-arms to the leader of Bosnian Serbs, Radovan Karadzik, who is still unfound. Earlier he threatened he wouldn’t surrender alive to the Hague Tribunal.

Biljana Plavsic is to stand trial in the Hague once again. Everyone  is wondering, what she will testify against the ex-president of Yugoslavia, Slobodan Milosevic.

According to Russia’s newspaper Kommersant, Biljana Plavsic, who is currently 72, is a legendary person. Her name was written on most armored vehicles during the Bosnian war. Plavsic took the presidential post in Serbia in 1996 and held it within two years, but she lost next elections. She voluntarily surrendered to the UN Tribunal in January 2001. At the same time, she openly declared she would be able to prove her innocence.

Meanwhile, Milosevic devoted the first half of the day yesterday to cross-examination of the incumbent Croatia President, Stipe Mesic. BBC informs, main issues at the examinations concerned the right of the former Yugoslav republics for self-determination, and events in the early 1990s when armed conflicts broke out in Croatia first and then in Bosnia.

Slobodan Milosevic started harsh disputes with Mesic, and judges had to interrupt him several times. Milosevic was said that he should ask questions only, “not make his own speeches or give evidence to crimes of other people who are not witnesses to the actual case.” Milosevic in his turn responded that everything he was saying “concerned the trial because it discredited the witness.” Milosevic accused then-speaker of the republican parliament Mesic of organizing assassinations of Serbs in Croatia.

Western observers who were present at the trial say that Mesic avoided Milosevic’s eyes, and looked at judge Richard May only. BBC journalists report that Milosevic was wonderfully prepared for the trial and artfully used testimonial evidences on the case.

Sergey Stefanov
PRAVDA.Ru