Reuters AlertNet Lite - Bosnian war crimes suspect refuses to enter plea

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Bosnian war crimes suspect refuses to enter plea

09 Jan 2007 15:08:05 GMT
Source: Reuters

SARAJEVO, Dec 9 (Reuters) - A Bosnian court entered a not guilty plea on Tuesday on behalf of a former Bosnian Croat military policeman, suspected of murdering and persecuting Muslims in the 1992-95 war, after he had refused to plead. A lawyer for Pasko Ljubicic, who was transferred from the U.N. war crimes court in The Hague in September to stand trial at Bosnia's war crimes court, insisted he did not have to enter a plea after he had pleaded not guilty at the U.N. court.

Lawyer Branka Praljak also said that the amended indictment accepted by the Bosnian court was less favourable for her client, who was a military police battalion commander in central Bosnia in 1993, during a fierce Muslim-Croat conflict.

Judge Dragomir Vukoje said that according to the law an automatic plea would be entered on the accused behalf. "Therefore I state that he pleaded not guilty", he said.

The new indictment included charges of crimes against humanity in addition to those for violations of the laws and customs of war, U.S. Prosecutor David Schwendiman said.

"In the period from January to July 1993 he participated in a widespread and systematic attack on the Muslim civilian population of the Vitez and Busovaca municipalities," Schwendiman said.

In the course of these attacks unarmed civilians were killed and others seriously wounded, houses and barns were burned, mosques were destroyed and the surviving civilians were expelled or taken to detention camps, he said.

The main charge against Ljubicic, who turned himself in to Croatian police in 2001 after a year in hiding, relates to a raid on the village of Ahmici in April 1993, when more than 100 civilians were killed and their houses burned down.

The 43-years-old Ljubicic also holds Croatian citizenship.

He is one of seven indictees in four mid- and low-ranking cases that have been transferred to Bosnia's new war crimes court from the U.N. war crimes tribunal so it can focus on top remaining suspects from the Balkan wars.

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Last updated:Tue Jan 9 15:08:32 2007