SERB AT HAGUE PLEADS GUILTY TO BRUTALITIES
By Marlise Simons

September 4, 2003 — (NYT) A notorious Serbian prison camp commander confessed today at the war crimes tribunal in The Hague that he was guilty of the rape, torture and murder of numerous civilians under his control during the 1992-95 Bosnian war.

Dragan Nikolic, 46, a former factory worker turned wartime tyrant, pleaded guilty to personally taking part in many of the brutalities against prisoners held at the Susica detention camp at Vlasenica, 30 miles from the Bosnian-Serbian border. He also admitted today that he had allowed guards and Serbian soldiers to come in, night after night, and abuse and rape Muslim and other non-Serbian girls and women.

Prosecutors asked for a 15-year prison sentence, but they did not disclose the terms of their agreement with Mr. Nikolic. His sentencing is expected in November.

The guilty plea was not the first at the court, but it was unusual in its drama, according to observers in the public gallery. While a judge or a court clerk may normally read out the counts of a crime and then wait for the accused to plead, the presiding judge today took a different approach.

Judge Wolfgang Schomburg of Germany first asked Mr. Nikolic, a tall and gaunt man, to rise. Then the judge read, slowly and deliberately, the full text of the indictment. After almost every paragraph, many filled with gruesome examples of abuse, the judge paused, looked up at Mr. Nikolic and asked him each time, "Is that correct?" Over and over again, Mr. Nikolic replied, "Correct" or "Yes, your honor."

Judith Armatta, a lawyer for the Coalition for International Justice who attended the session, said that by reading and pausing for almost 30 minutes the judge forced Mr. Nikolic to acknowledge all of the crimes with which he was charged.

Ms. Armatta, who has worked in Bosnia, said she believed that the impact of the guilty plea might be strongest there, where war victims can follow such proceedings on television. Human rights workers in Bosnia have said guilty pleas here have at times made war victims feel cheated. Some have said that without a trial, there is no real reckoning.

Mr. Nikolic was the 11th person to plead guilty at the tribunal. Though prosecutors decline to discuss the subject, there appears to be a change of strategy, including the encouraging of plea-bargaining, to avoid long trials, at a court that is under Western pressure to conclude its work.

The Nikolic case stands out for several reasons. The first man to be indicted by the tribunal in 1994, he was on the run for six years until United Nations troops arrested him in 2000. At the time, Mr. Nikolic pleaded not guilty. Today, he owned up to at least nine murders and a host of cruelties, including using ax handles and iron bars to beat prisoners, breaking their ribs, knocking out their teeth and pressing a bayonet or a pistol into their mouths.

From: http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/05/international/europe/05HAGU.html