Former Bosnian Serb leader Biljana Plavšić dies in Belgrade

Former Bosnian Serb leader Biljana Plavšić, who pleaded guilty before a United Nations court to persecution as a crime against humanity for her role in the atrocities of the 1992–95 Bosnian war, has died in the Serbian capital, Belgrade. She was 96.

Plavšić was one of the leading senior Bosnian Serb officials who implemented a peace agreement signed in Dayton, Ohio, while serving as president of Bosnia’s Serb political entity, Republika Srpska, immediately after the end of the war.

During the war she served on the Bosnian Serbs’ leadership council. Regarded by Western officials as far more liberal than other Bosnian Serb leaders, she became an outspoken opponent of the Bosnian Serbs’ wartime president, Radovan Karadžić.

However, in 2000 she was indicted by the Hague-based UN tribunal for the former Yugoslavia on charges of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity for her alleged role in the wartime campaign to create a separate Serb entity in Bosnia.

She surrendered voluntarily to face justice in 2001 and later pleaded guilty to the crime against humanity of persecution during the war. The other charges were dropped.

She was sentenced to 11 years in prison and was released in 2009 after serving two-thirds of her sentence.

Plavšić’s death comes just a few weeks after the former Bosnian Serb military chief, Ratko Mladić, died in detention after being convicted of genocide and other crimes during the Bosnian war.

Before entering politics as the former Yugoslavia was breaking apart, Plavšić was a professor of natural sciences and a faculty dean at the University of Sarajevo.

Since her release from prison, Plavšić had withdrawn from public life and was living in Belgrade.