The former Bosnian Serb president, Dr Biljana Plavsic, pleaded not guilty at the UN tribunal in The Hague yesterday to genocide and other charges of leading the bloody ethnic cleansing that began the Bosnian war.
Dr Plavsic, the first woman publicly indicted by the tribunal and the second key figure from the former Bosnian Serb leadership to come to The Hague, surrendered to the court on Wednesday.
She faces nine counts of war crimes, including the most severe, genocide, for her alleged leading role in the purge of Muslim and Croat civilians. Smartly dressed and flanked by two female guards, the 70-yearold answered "Not guilty" to each count as the judge read them out.
During the 1992-1995 Bosnian war, Ms Plavsic was deputy to the Bosnian Serb leader, Dr Radovan Karadzic. The indictment says Ms Plavsic, with other members of the Serbian Democratic Party, served on the war presidency of the Bosnian Serb republic and from July 1991 to December 1992 provoked the crisis in the region and planned the ethnic cleansing of tens of thousands of Bosnian Muslims and Croats.