Biljana Plavšić

Biljana Plavšić ( Serbian Cyrillic Биљана Плавшић; * July 7, 1930 in Tuzla, Kingdom of Yugoslavia) is a former politician and convicted war criminal in the Republika Srpska in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Life

Biljana Plavšić studied at the University of Zagreb and was a professor of biology (focus morphology of plants ) and Dean of the Faculty of Natural Sciences and Mathematics at the University of Sarajevo. She was elected as a member of the founded in July 1990, the Serbian Democratic Party in the first multi-party elections as the only woman in the Bosnian Republic Presidency; this office she held from November 1990 to April 1992.

In the further course of the year 1992, she was Vice President of Republika Srpska and member of the High Command of the Armed Forces of the Republika Srpska. After the president of Republika Srpska, Radovan Karadžić, 1996 resigned due to international pressure, it was his successor. She went increasingly distanced themselves Karadžić, which led to a power struggle. Plavšić left the then capital of the Republika Srpska, Pale ( near Sarajevo ), and carried out the affairs of Banja Luka. She was expelled from the Serbian Democratic Party and subsequently founded the party Srpski Narodni Savez (SNS, Serbian People's League ). In the presidential election of 1998 Plavšić was replaced by Nikola Poplašen.

Biljana Plavšić was initially as a radical nationalist, but made during her tenure as president of the way for reforms and the Social Democrats nominated Milorad Dodik as prime minister.

Indicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia for crimes against humanity ( supporting the planning and execution of expulsions ), the Commission in January 2001. Sentence of eleven years, to which she was convicted, she sat since 2003 in the women's prison Hinse mountain in the Swedish province from Örebro. According to an article in the Frankfurter Rundschau it was on the one hand represented as war criminal, but on the other hand, certifies her a good character and placed leniency in view when they meaningful against Slobodan Milošević. In a conversation with journalists in early 2009, it became clear that the criminal shortening the principal motive for their repentance ( " The knowledge that I am responsible for such human suffering and for soiling the character of my people, will always be with me " ) have been is what is confirmed by the journalist: " she admitted that she had only expressed remorse for their past deeds, because she wanted to get a shorter prison sentence she told me that she still hate Muslims [ ... ]. ".

On 27 October 2009 Plavšić was released after serving two- thirds of her sentence for good behavior early from prison. The decision to release summarized the Swedish Government on 22 October 2009, after two appeals for clemency had been previously rejected. Contrary to the Swedish practice Plavšić will not be monitored for the remaining period of the original sentence.

Writings

• Svedočim. Knjiga pisana u zatvoru ( I'm from. A book written in prison. Autobiography ), 2004, ISBN 99938-753-1-7