Military

DATE=2/27/03

TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT

NUMBER=2-300131

TITLE=WAR CRIMES / BOSNIA (L-Only)

BYLINE=LAUREN COMITEAU

DATELINE=THE HAGUE

CONTENT:

VOICED AT:

INTRO: Judges at the U-N war crimes tribunal for the former Yugoslavia have sentenced a former president of the Bosnian Serb Republic to 11 years in prison for crimes against humanity for her role in a campaign of murder, torture and expulsions of non-Serbs. Lauren Comiteau reports from The Hague, Biljana Plavsic is the highest-ranking politician from former Yugoslavia to be sentenced for war-time atrocities.

TEXT: Calling her crime one of the utmost gravity, Judge Richard May handed down the sentence to 72-year-old Biljana Plavsic -- the first political leader at the Hague court to plead guilty and express remorse for her crimes.

/// MAY ACTUALITY ///

No sentence, which the trial chamber passes can fully reflect the horror of what occurred, or the terrible impact on thousands of victims. Will the accused please rise. Biljana Plavsic, having given due weight to the factors set out, the trial chamber sentences you to a period of 11 years imprisonment.

/// END ACTUALITY ///

Plavsic, dressed in a blue suit with a gold cross hanging from her neck, listened impassively, as Judge May explained the delicate legal balancing act that went into the chamber's decision.

Plavsic was originally charged with eight counts -- including genocide -- for her role in a Bosnian Serb campaign to expel non-Serbs from large areas of Bosnia. She voluntarily surrendered to the court, and eventually pleaded guilty to one count of persecution. She accepted that the leadership she was a part of encouraged a plan that included murder, torture, rape and the imprisonment of innocent civilians.

Judge May said she may not have conceived of the plan or been its biggest practitioner. But, he said, she embraced and supported it, publicly encouraged it, and even invited paramilitary troops from neighboring Serbia to help carry it out.

During her sentencing hearing last year, Plavsic admitted as much, and accepted responsibility for the crimes, telling judges that, at the time, she believed it was a matter of Serb survival. Only in hindsight, she said, did she realize that she victimized thousands of innocent people out of a blinding fear and an obsession to prevail at any cost.

By saying so, she became the first political leader in the Balkans to accept responsibility and express remorse, hoping, she said, to offer some consolation to the victims and to contribute to reconciliation in the region.

Judges say they considered her unprecedented steps as mitigating factors in determining her sentence -- along with her age and the fact that, after the war, she helped implement the Dayton Peace Plan, at a time when many others were trying to undermine it.

/// REST OPT ///

Still, Bosnian journalist Emir Suljagic says the sentence is too lenient.

/// SULJAGIC ACTUALITY ///

I think 11 years is nothing compared to both the sheer size and the gravity of the crimes to which Biljana Plavsic has pleaded guilty. And I don't think that her admission of guilt in this particular case should be any mitigating circumstance. I think that the fact that this woman is responsible for the deaths of 50-thousand people is horrible enough.

/// END ACT ///

Prosecutors -- who had asked for a tougher sentence -- say they hope Thursday's decision encourages other officials to also come forward and accept responsibility for their crimes. Defense lawyers, who had argued that any sentence over eight years would amount to a death sentence for someone Plavsic's age, were not commenting.

Both sides have 30 days to appeal, although it is not expected.

Plavsic has said she does not want to testify against any other defendants. But if Radovan Karadzic or Ratko Mladic -- the top leaders of the Bosnian Serbs who are indicted for genocide -- ever make it into the custody of the Hague court, Biljana Plavsic's admission that the government they were all a part of did indeed commit such crimes could be used against them. (Signed)

NEB/LC/AWP/TW/FC