World

War Crimes Suspect Arraigned

By CBSNews.com staff CBSNews.com staff

December 7, 1998 / 10:06 AM EST / CBS

The top Bosnian Serb war crimes suspect in U.N. custody, a general accused of overseeing the 1995 massacre of thousands of Muslims, denied genocide charges on Monday.

At his arraignment before the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal, Gen. Radislav Krstic also pleaded innocent to crimes against humanity and grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions.

"I plead not guilty," Krstic, 50, said calmly and clearly as each charge was read.

Krstic, arrested last week by U.S. members of the NATO peacekeeping force in Bosnia, is the most senior Serb military officer to be tried for atrocities during the Bosnian war.

A trial date was not immediately set for Krstic, who is being held in the U.N. court's high-security cell block outside The Hague. If convicted, he faces a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.

Krstic was allowed to remain seated as he entered his pleas. His lawyer, Nenad Petrusic, told presiding Judge Claude Jorda of France that Krstic was suffering from serious injuries that made it difficult for him to stand. Krstic reportedly lost part of his right leg after stepping on a mine in 1994.

The indictment alleges offenses that followed the Serb takeover of the U.N. "safe haven" of Srebrenica in eastern Bosnia in July 1995. Prosecutor Brenda Hollis said she would likely call between 50 and 70 witnesses at the trial, which is expected to last for months.

The indictment says forces under Krstic and Bosnian Serb wartime military chief Gen. Ratko Mladic "either expelled or killed" most members of the enclave's Bosnian Muslim population.

Krstic planned and assisted in the "preparation or execution of a planned and organized mass execution of thousands of captured Bosnian Muslim men." The indictment was issued in October but was made public only last week so Krstic would not flee.

The widescale killings allegedly occurred in several locations in and around the enclave, including a warehouse and schools.

Soldiers under Krstic's command used heavy equipment to bury the victims in mass graves. When the international community learned of the killings, Krstic and his units dug up the bodies and transferred them to other graves, the indictment alleges.

Krstic is believed to be a close associate of Mladic and former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, the tribunal's top two suspects. Both have been indicted for the massacres at Srebrenica; both remain at large.

Krstic's arrest triggered protests from Bosnian Serbs and from Russia, which has criticised the use of sealed charges in the case. Chief Prosecutor Louise Arbour issued the indictment against Krstic one month before his apprehension.

In the Bosnian town of Vlasenica, where the Drina Corps formerly under Krstic's command was based, two European monitors were manhandled by demonstrators over the weekend. On Thursday, a U.N. vehicle was damaged in an explosion.

Local media have reported Krtic was maltreated during his arrest, charges denied by SFOR. Krstic's defence counsel Nenad Petrusic said his client's health was in a "perilous" state.

Krstic is one of 26 men in custody at The Hague tribunal's Scheveningen detention centre. His was the ninth arrest by NATO and the fourth under a sealed indictment.

The tribunal was established in 1993 by the U.N. Security Council to prosecute genocide and war crimes stemming from clashes in the former Yugoslavia.