Bosnia's 'Iron Lady' changes war crimes plea to guilty

Biljana Plavsic, the former Bosnian Serb president once known as the "Iron Lady" of the Balkans, admitted war crimes charges yesterday in a surprise change of heart at the UN tribunal in The Hague.

Ms Plavsic, one of the most high-profile defendants at the war crimes court, had earlier pleaded not guilty to eight charges, including genocide. Yesterday, seven of those were dropped when Ms Plavsic, 72, accepted one count of crimes against humanity.

The decision adds another scalp to those already obtained by the prosecutor as Ms Plavsic becomes the first well-known leader to plead guilty. Her admission of guilt, albeit on just one charge, also avoids the need for a lengthy and expensive hearing.

Ms Plavsic, who surrendered voluntarily to the tribunal, changed her plea via a video link from the Balkans, where she was given permission to remain until sentencing.

However, speculation that she has agreed to testify against Slobodan Milosevic, the former Yugoslav president, as part of a plea bargain was denied by her lawyers.

The chief prosecutor, Carla del Ponte, has made little secret of her hopes that Ms Plavsic will testify against Mr Milosevic, who faces 61 war crimes charges including genocide.

However, Robert Pavich, the lead counsel for Ms Plavsic, said there is "no agreement, nor have there been any discussions, between Ms Plavsic and the Office of the Prosecutor regarding sentencing", and added that his client "has not agreed to testify in any case pending before this tribunal".

During the Bosnian war, Ms Plavsic, a former biology professor, was deputy to Radovan Karadzic, the Bosnian Serb leader and one of the tribunal's most wanted men. She later took over from Mr Karadzic and was indicted on charges relating to ethnic cleansing against Muslims and Croats around Zvornik, Foca and Sanski Most between 1991 and 1992.

Her decision came as the trial of Mr Milosevic continued, with the former Yugoslav president launching a verbal counter-attack against the Croatian President, Stjepan Mesic, who testified against him on Tuesday.

During cross-examination, Mr Milosevic responded in kind to claims from Mr Mesic over responsibility for the disintegration of Yugoslavia. On Tuesday, Mr Mesicput the blame squarely on Mr Milosevic for engineering the break-up of the country to create an ethnically-pure "greater Serbia".

Yesterday, Mr Milosevic told the Croatian President: "You betrayed Yugoslavia, you contributed to its dissolution." He also accused Mr Mesic – the first head of state to testify in the trial – of ordering murders, claiming that Serb villages in Croatia were destroyed. "I heard about the torching of villages and lodged a complaint with [late Croatian] president [Franjo] Tudjman," he said.

Mr Milosevic laughed as he grilled the Croatian President about what he described as his "criminal past" and accused him of ordering the murder of two Serbs in the 1970s when he was a town mayor.

Mr Mesic, who avoided eye-contact with the accused throughout the hearing, told the judges how he had served a year in prison in 1975 for comments demanding more democracy for Croatia. He denied knowledge of the murders, adding: "That is a product of someone's fantasy. I had as much influence [on the murder] as I had on Lincoln's assassination."