(31 Aug 1999) Eng/Serbo-Croat/Nat
Momir Talic, the highest-ranking Bosnian Serb military official in U-N war crimes tribunal custody, pleaded innocent on Tuesday to charges of crimes against humanity stemming from a bloody 1992 ethnic purge of non-Serbs.
General Talic, the former Serb commander, was arrested last week while attending a conference in Vienna.
A trial date was not immediately set but Talic faces a maximum sentence of life imprisonment if convicted.
Momir Talic listened impassively throughout the brief, 10-minute hearing in The Hague on Tuesday.
Defence counsel Vladimir Petrovic told the court his client had waived the right to hear the indictment against him read in full.
Afterwards, the ex-commander of the 1st Krajina Corps and close associate of military chief Ratko Mladic, pleaded not guilty to the charge of crimes against humanity brought against him.
SOUNDBITE (English)
"The charge against you is that you committed persecutions on political, racial or religious grounds, i.e. a crime against humanity. I am now going to ask you to plead to that charge. Your response should be guilty or not guilty as the case may be. How do you plead - guilty or not guilty?"
SUPER CAPTION: David Hunt, Presiding Judge
SOUNDBITE (Serbo-Croat?)
"Not guilty."
SUPER CAPTION: Momir Talic, defendant
The run up to Tuesday's hearing started in March, when 57-year-old Momir Talic was secretly indicted along with former Bosnian Serb Cabinet minister Radislav Brdjanin.
The latter was arrested and brought to The Hague on July 6 and will eventually stand trial together with Talic.
Both men are accused of planning and orchestrating a violent purge of more than 100-thousand Muslims and Croats from northwest Bosnia in 1992.
Their indictment describes the campaign as �a plan designed to expel ... non-Serb populations on political, racial or religious grounds�.
Prosecutors allege that troops under their command ran the infamous Omarska, Keraterm and Trnopolje prison camps.
The prosecution says in these camps detainees were �killed, tortured, and continually subjected to physical and psychological maltreatment and inhumane treatment.�
During the Bosnia war, Talic sat on the Autonomous Region of Krajina (ARK) Crisis Staff, allegedly set up by Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic to ethnically cleanse Serb-held areas.
The departing Chief Prosecutor Louise Arbour of Canada said she was confident that other top suspects indicted by the tribunal eventually will be brought to justice.
Presiding Judge David Hunt wound up proceedings without setting a trial date.
Usually it takes months for cases to come to court in one of the tribunal's three trial chambers.
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