The sole Bosnian Serb political leader to plead guilty to war crimes in the 1992-1995 conflict was released from a Swedish prison on Tuesday after serving six years in jail for crimes against humanity.
Biljana Plavsic, a former president of the Serbian half of Bosnia and close colleague of Radovan Karadzic, the Bosnian Serb leader whose trial has just got under way at the war crimes tribunal in The Hague, flew from Sweden to Belgrade.
Wearing a fur coat and blowing kisses to the crowds gathered to greet her, Plavsic arrived in the Serbian capital on Tuesday, accompanied by Bosnian Serb Prime Minister Milorad Dodik. She was later driven to her flat in the city.
“I’m happy to be here ... but, after nine years in prison, I don’t know what will happen,” she said.
Plavsic, an extreme Serbian nationalist who was notoriously photographed embracing the late warlord Arkan alongside dead Bosnian Muslims at the beginning of the war, reached a plea bargain with prosecutors in The Hague and received an 11-year sentence in 2003.
She had faced eight charges, including two of genocide. All the most serious charges against her were dropped in return for her admission of remorse and guilty plea.
A biologist and former Sarajevo University professor, Plavsic was one of the original troika of hardline Bosnian Serb leaders around Karadzic at the start of the Yugoslav wars in 1991.
She was revered by Bosnian Serb nationalists, who named her their Iron Lady and Serbian Queen. Many Bosnian Muslims are convinced her declarations of remorse were aimed purely at gaining a light sentence.
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