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Bosnian court enters not guilty plea for Karadzic PM
31 Jan 2008 15:34:54 GMT
 Source: Reuters
SARAJEVO, Jan 31 (Reuters) - A Bosnian judge entered a "not guilty" plea on Thursday for Bosnian Serb former prime minister Gojko Klickovic, who stands charged with war crimes, after the former leader refused to do so.

Klickovic is the highest-ranking official from the administration of Bosnian Serb war crimes fugitive Radovan Karadzic to face trial for masterminding the persecution of Muslims from western Bosnia in 1991.

"I don't want to enter a plea because my defence... has not been completed yet due to a mistake of the court," Klickovic said.

Saban Maksumic, a judge at the Bosnian war crimes court, entered the plea on Klickovic's behalf, saying the accused had delayed the proceedings twice before for the same reason.

During the 1992-1995 war, Bosnian Serbs persecuted non-Serbs to create exclusively Serb territories, creating a model of ethnic cleansing that was later adopted by other groups in the multi-ethnic country.

Klickovic was a member of the Karadzic's SDS party in the town of Bosanska Krupa. According to the court's indictment, the group used armed force to persecute the Muslim population to establish a Serb municipality in the town.

"The accused, ... , also planned, instigated, ordered and participated in persecution, attacks on civilians, unlawful captures and detention, tortures and inhumane treatment as well as in the commission of other criminal offences," it said.

A local court in the Serb Republic, an autonomous region that makes up Bosnia along with the Muslim-Croat federation, also wants Klickovic on accusations of embezzling large sums of money while he was the region's prime minister.

Serbia extradited Klickovic, where he had lived in worked since 1998, to Bosnia last year. (Reporting by Daria Sito-Sucic; Editing by Michael Winfrey)


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Last updated:Thu Jan 31 15:33:39 2008