Biljana Plavsic
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Biljana Plavšić (born July 7, 1930 in Tuzla) is a Bosnian Serb politician, formerly President of Republika Srpska, currently incarcerated for crimes committed during the 1992-1995 war in Bosnia.
Plavšić was a member of the Serb Democratic Party. She was the first female member of the collective Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina, serving from November 18, 1990 until April 1992.
From February 28, 1992 until May 12 1992, Plavšić became one of the two acting Presidents of the self-styled "Serbian Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina". On May 12th, 1992, she became a member of the three-member Presidency of the Serbian Republic and around November 30, 1992, she was a member of the Supreme Command of the armed forces of the "Serbian Republic".
After the Dayton Agreement was signed in 1995, she was rehabilitated and ran as SDS' candidate for the Presidency of Republika Srpska, successfully. She would only serve for two years, and was deposed from office on July 20, 1997. Her successor in the spring of 1998 became Nikola Poplašen.
She was indicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia together with Momčilo Krajišnik in connection with Radovan Karadžić, for the "creation of impossible conditions of life, persecution and terror tactics in order to encourage non-Serbs to leave the area, deportation of those reluctant to leave, and the liquidation of others". She voluntarily surrendered to the ICTY on January 10, 2001, and was provisionally released on September 6, 2001.
On December 16 2002, she pled guilty to one count of crimes against humanity at the ICTY for her part in persecuting Bosnian Muslims and Croats during the war.[1] (http://abcnews.go.com/wire/World/ap20021216_906.html) She was later sentenced to 11 years in prison.
She is currently serving her sentence at the women's prison Hinseberg in Örebro, Sweden (since June 26, 2003).
External link
- ICTY info on Plavšić (http://www.un.org/icty/glance/plavsic.htm)de:Biljana Plavsic