Outrage at early release of Bosnian Serb ‘Iron Lady’

MUSLIM victims of the Bosnian war have voiced outrage at the decision to grant early release to a Bosnian Serb ex-president convicted of crimes against humanity.

“It might be in line with international law, but it has nothing to do with justice,” said Murat Tahirovic, head of an association of Muslim and Croat war camp prisoners. “How can we explain this to children whose parents had been killed [in Serb-run camps], children who remember their parents only from photos?”

The Hague-based International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) announced yesterday that Biljana Plavsic should be granted early release from her 11-year jail term for good behaviour and apparent rehabilitation.

The 79-year-old is serving her sentence in Sweden and under Swedish law becomes eligible for release from October 27, after serving two-thirds of her term.

The Bosnian Serb “Iron Lady” was sentenced in February 2003 after she admitted playing a leading role in a campaign of persecution against Croats and Muslims during Bosnia’s 1992-1995 war.

She is the highest ranking official of the former Yugoslavia to acknowledge responsibility for atrocities committed in the wars after the federation’s break up.

“How is it possible that Plavsic has the right to freedom and I do not have the right to find and bury bones of my son 14 years after he had been brutally killed?” asked Munira Subasic, head of an association of survivors of the 1995 Srebrenica massacre.

The victims of wartime rape by Serb soldiers said they were “shocked and dismayed” by the decision.

Meanwhile, Serbs and Plavsic’s family welcomed the tribunal’s move, saying they “are still excited and stunned”.