Military

DATE=12/16/02

TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT

TITLE=BOSNIA/WAR CRIMES

NUMBER=2-297511

BYLINE=LISA BRYANT

DATELINE=PARIS

CONTENT=

INTRO: The United Nations war crimes tribunal in the Hague opened a sentencing hearing Monday for former Bosnian Serb president Biljana Plasvic, who has pleaded guilty to crimes against humanity. Lisa Bryant in Paris reports the opening day included remarks from the French capital by Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel.

TEXT: A parade of defense and prosecution witnesses testified Monday, as

The sentencing hearing opened against former Bosnian Serb president Biljana

Plavsic. Now 72-years -old, the one-time biology professor is the highest ranking former Yugoslav official to acknowledge her role in Bosnia-Herzegovina's brutal 1992-1995 civil war.

Nobel peace laureate Elie Wiesel spoke to the Tribunal from Paris during Monday's hearing. He said crimes such as those condoned by Mrs. Plasvic result in livelong scars on both the victims and the perpetrators. He questioned how an intellectual like Mrs. Plasvic could remain silent in the face of so much bloodshed and indignity, during the Bosnian war a decade ago.

As with previous hearings at The Hague Tribunal, the day was a mix of unremarkable details, and jarring reminiscences. Speaking through a translator, Bosnian Adil Draganovic described horrific conditions at one Bosnian detention camp set up by Bosnian Serb authorities, in the early 1990s.

//DRAGANOVIC ACT//

In the first three months it was a camp of hunger. People were starved. There was not enough food, and what there was was poor quality food.

//END ACT//

Mr. Draganovic, president of a group of former detention camp inmates, said he also personally witnessed people being shot dead by camp guards. He says he has

never recovered from the experience.

Mrs. Plasvic rose to become the deputy of former Bosnian Serb leader, Radovan

Karadzic, who has also been indicted for war crimes. She replaced him in 1996. Throughout her political career she remained fiercely anti-Muslim. She was once photographed stepping over a Bosnian Muslim corpse, to kiss a notorious paramilitary leader, known as Arkan.

But Mrs. Plasvic later moderated her political platform. Early last year, she surrendered to the U-N War Crimes Tribunal. In October, she pleaded guilty to

charges of crimes against humanity.

Defense witness Milorad Dodik, a member of an opposition party in the early

1990s, argued Mrs. Plasvic appeared to distance herself from her own party, and was frequently overruled. Speaking through a translator, he also said she spent much time overseeing the situation of Bosnian Serb political refugees.

//DODIK ACT//

I think that was her exclusive involvement. That is to say she dealt with humanitarian issues. And I can say with absolute certainty before this lofty tribunal that the sentiments during those days, months and years, was that Mrs. Plasvic in the leadership of Republica Serbska, in a political sense of the word, was completely marginalized.

//END ACT//

The sentencing hearing is scheduled to last through Wednesday. Among those expected to testify are former U-S secretary of state Madeleine Albright, and Mrs.

Plasvic herself. If found guilty, Mrs. Plasvic could face life in prison. (SIGNED)

NEB/EB/AWP/KBK