Bosnian Serb denies war crimes

Mr Nikolic is facing 80 charges at The Hague

By Geraldine Coughlan in The Hague

A Bosnian Serb prison camp commander has pleaded not guilty to charges of crimes against humanity which he is alleged to have committed during the Bosnian war.

Dragan Nikolic, who was arrested by Nato-led peacekeepers in Bosnia-Herzegovina a week ago, is the second Bosnian Serb to be brought before the International War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague this month.

Mr Nikolic pleaded not guilty to charges on a record 80 counts of murder, persecution, torture and rape.

Composed

He is accused of committing these crimes when he was a commander at the Susica detention camp north-east of Sarajevo in 1992.

He is also accused of being responsible for those acts allegedly committed by the guards subordinate to him.

Eight thousand Muslims and non-Serbs passed through the camp in six months.

After that, hardly any non-Serbs remained in the surrounding area then declared an autonomous region by the Serbs.

In court, Mr Nikolic was smartly dressed and composed, sitting calmly for the usual press photographs before the session opened.

Suspects at large

Mr Nikolic was the first war crimes suspect to be indicted by the tribunal in 1994.

It has taken the Nato soldiers in Bosnia-Herzegovina five years to track him down.

During that time the tribunal's experts have been fine-tuning its legal procedures to absorb the nuances of international law.

The aim is to step up arrests and speed up the trials, but with indicted suspects such as the Yugoslav President, Slobodan Milosevic, and the former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic still evading arrest, it remains to be seen how effective the tribunal's strategy of indicting the top war criminals really is.