War crimes court gives former Bosnian Serb president 11 years

THE HAGUE, Netherlands -- Biljana Plavsic, the former Bosnian Serb leader who expressed remorse for the horrors committed against non-Serbs during the Bosnian war, was sentenced Thursday to 11 years in prison for promoting a campaign of murder, rape and torture.

The 72-year-old Plavsic -- once known as Bosnia's "iron lady" -- is the highest-ranking politician from the former Yugoslavia to be sentenced by the court.

The sentence sought to balance the heinous crimes Plavsic committed against her later commitment to ethnic reconciliation, and to send a signal encouraging other suspects to surrender and acknowledge guilt for war crimes committed in the Balkans.

More than 200,000 people are believed to have died in Bosnia, the worst carnage in Europe since World War II.

Judge Richard May said Plavsic embraced and promoted "crimes of the utmost gravity" and that "undue leniency would be misplaced."

But the court also took into account her plea of guilty to one count of persecution after striking a bargain with prosecutors who dropped seven other charges, including genocide.

The three-judge panel also recognized her remorse and help in implementing the 1995 peace agreement in Bosnia that ended the three-year war, despite threats to her life.

The court said that since she is 72, her age made "serving the same sentence harder" than for a younger person.

, and noted that "an offender of advanced years may have little worthwhile life left upon release."

Plavsic stood erect and grim as May read the sentence, and smiled only slightly when she heard the term.

She has 30 days to appeal the sentence, which is to be served in a European country not yet named. She could be released early on parole, depending on the laws of that country. She was credited with 245 days already served in detention.

Plavsic served as the right hand of Bosnian Serb wartime leader Radovan Karadzic and became Bosnia's president after the war.

Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, who is being tried by the same three judges, has defended his role in the Balkan wars and refused to acknowledge the legitimacy of the tribunal.

Prosecutors had asked that Plavsic be sentenced to 15 to 25 years, while the defense said any sentence longer than eight years would likely condemn her to death behind bars.

Florence Hartmann, a spokeswoman for the prosecution, said "justice was served" by the sentence and prosecutors likely wouldn't appeal.

Bosnian victims of the Serb onslaught saw the sentence as too lenient.

Fata Bekic, a Muslim from Mostar, said Plavsic "deserved a heavier sentence, although there is no sentence heavy enough to really punish those crimes."

Paul Williams, an American author who was part of the Bosnian delegation during 1995 peace negotiations, called the decision a "step along the road to irrelevancy for the tribunal.

"The kinder, gentler approach doesn't fit with the reality of war crimes," he said.

But many Bosnian Serbs said the trial and sentence were unfair.

"Every Serb knows well that the Hague tribunal has an anti-Serb bias," said Aleksandar Divcic, a Serb economist. "I'm sorry Mrs. Plavsic has not realized that in time. Having in mind her age, she really has nothing to hope for. I feel sorry for her."

Reading a summary of the ruling, May said the crimes "did not happen to a nameless group but to individual men, women and children who were mistreated, raped, tortured and killed." Plavsic, he said, embraced and promoted the campaign of ethnic cleansing, even though she was not among those who conceived and planned it.

"No sentence which the trial chamber passes can fully reflect the horror of what occurred or the terrible impact on thousands of victims," the judge said.

But the court also gave great weight to Plavsic's statements of remorse, which she said were intended to promote reconciliation among the bitter ethnic rivals in her country.

At her sentencing hearing, Plavsic said her wartime actions were driven by "blinding fear" that Serbs would become victims. But in their zeal to protect themselves, she said, the Serbs became the "victimizers."

She said she hoped her admission of guilt would "help the Muslim, Croat and even Serb victims not to be overtaken with bitterness, which often becomes hatred and is in the end self-destructive."

Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright spoke on Plavsic's behalf, saying she had courageously sought reconciliation after the war.

Richard Dicker of New York-based Human Rights Watch said the court did a good job of balancing Plavsic's crimes and her remorse.

"I hope this will be seen as justice being done, for both victims of crimes as well as those in whose names the crimes were committed," he said. "She received what is a lengthy prison sentence in the context of her age, ... she was not dealt with lightly."