Former Bosnian Serb leader Biljana Plavsic dies in Belgrade

BELGRADE, Serbia -- Former Bosnian Serb leader Biljana Plavsic, who pleaded guilty at a United Nations tribunal to persecution as a crime against humanity for her role in atrocities during the 1992-95 Bosnian war, has died in Serbia's capital Belgrade, according to Bosnian Serb public media. She was 96.Plavsic was one of the key Bosnian Serb high officials who implemented a peace agreement signed in Dayton, Ohio, while she was serving as a president of the Bosnian Serb political entity, Republika Srpska, just after the war ended. During the war she served on the Bosnian Serb leadership council. Considered by Western officials as much more liberal than other Bosnian Serb leaders, she became a vocal opponent of wartime Bosnian Serb President Radovan Karadzic. Nonetheless, she was indicted in 2000 by The Hague-based U.N. tribunal for the former Yugoslavia on charges of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity for her alleged role in the wartime campaign to carve out a separate Serb entity in Bosnia.She voluntarily surrendered to face justice in 2001, and later pleaded guilty to the crime against humanity of persecution during the war. Other charges were withdrawn.“Mrs. Plavsic...