Tuesday, 27 October 2009
Former Bosnian Serb President Biljana Plavsic was released from a Swedish prison and flown to Belgrade Tuesday after serving two-thirds of her 11-year term for war crimes in the 1990s.
The Swedish authorities earlier confirmed the release of the 79-year-old former Bosnian Serb politician following a decision by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague.
According to media reports, the decision was met with protests by Bosnian Muslim relatives of victims of the 1992-1995 war, but was celebrated by Bosnian Serbs.
Plavsic was president of Republika Srpska for two years, from 1996 through 1998, and was convicted of crimes against humanity in February 2003 after surrendering to the ICTY in January 2001.
Besides being the highest-ranking Bosnian Serb politician to be sentenced, she was also known for her fiery nationalist statements during the War in Bosnia.
In 1992, a widely-circulated photograph showed her stepping over the body of a dead Muslim civilian to kiss the notorious Serb warlord Zeljko Raznatovic, also known as Arkan.
The former university professor is the only woman to be sentenced by the ICTY since its establishment in 1993. Plavsic may still face persecution in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina is primarily inhabited by Bosniaks and Bosnian Croats, while Serbs constitute 88% of the population in the Republika Srpska, although both entities are two main political-territorial divisions of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Meanwhile, another former Bosnian Serb leader, Radovan Karadzic, failed to appear for the start of his trial on war crimes and genocide charges at The Hague's International Criminal Tribunal on Monday.
Karadzic, 64, maintains he needs at least nine more months to prepare his defense. He is defending himself against charges that include the massacre of some 7,000 Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica in 1995.
