A Bosnian Serb confessed at The Hague tribunal on Thursday to murdering and torturing Muslim prisoners by beating them with axe handles and metal pipes during the 1992-95 Bosnian war.

Bosnian Serb Dragan Nikolic, charged with a litany of killings and beatings as the commander of a detention camp during the 1992-95 Bosnian war, pleaded guilty at The Hague tribunal on Sept 4, 2003 to four counts of crimes against humanity. Nikolic, shown at The Hague on April 28, 2000, reversed a not guilty plea made in 2000 after reaching a plea agreement with prosecutors.    [Reuters]

Dragan Nikolic, the former commander of a detention camp, pleaded guilty to persecution, murder, torture and allowing guards and soldiers to rape and sexually assault women detained in Susica detention camp in eastern Bosnia in 1992.

"Guilty your honor," Nikolic told the U.N. war crimes tribunal's judges when he was asked to plead to four counts of crimes against humanity at a special hearing.

The 46-year-old former aluminum factory worker admitted to meting out a series of brutal beatings at the camp using metal piping, rifle butts and wooden bats and involvement in shooting dead other prisoners at the camp.

Nikolic, a tall and gaunt man, admitted to nine murders, including the death of a 60-year-old man he beat unconscious with a metal pipe. The man later died from his wounds. He also admitted forcing a bayonet and a pistol into prisoners mouths.

"Dragan Nikolic participated in creating and maintaining this atmosphere of terror and inhumane conditions," presiding judge Wolfgang Schomburg said, quoting the indictment.

Around 8,000 Muslims and other non-Serbs were detained in the overcrowded camp in eastern Bosnia where prosecutors said inmates were beaten on a daily basis between May and October 1992 during a wave of ethnic cleansing.

Nikolic reversed a not-guilty plea made in 2000 after reaching a plea agreement with prosecutors. Prosecutors have called for a prison term of up to 16 years. Nikolic is expected to be sentenced later this year.

Nikolic, who was arrested by NATO-led peacekeepers in northern Bosnia in April 2000, was the first suspect indicted by the U.N. war crimes tribunal in The Hague.

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