Croatian Serb leader Babic commits suicide in jail
(Reuters)
Updated: 2006-03-07 11:05

Former rebel Croatian Serb leader Milan Babic has committed suicide in jail in The Hague where he was being held to testify against another top Croatian Serb, the UN war crimes tribunal said on Monday.

The tribunal said in a statement that Babic was found dead in his cell at the UN detention unit on Sunday evening.

Former rebel Croatian Serb leader Milan Babic makes a surprise appearance at the U.N. International Tribunal in The Hague in this November 26, 2003 file photo. Babic has committed suicide in detention in The Hague, the U.N. warcrimes tribunal said on March 6, 2006. Babic was found guilty by the U.N. war crimes tribunal on a charge of persecution against non-Serb civilians, a crime against humanity, and sentenced to 13 years of prison. [Reuters]

"The Dutch authorities were called immediately. After conducting an investigation, they confirmed that the cause of death was suicide," the statement said, adding that Tribunal President Judge Fausto Pocar had ordered an internal inquiry.

The tribunal did not say how Babic had killed himself.

Babic, 50, was the former president of the self-declared Krajina Serb republic that broke away from Croatia after it declared independence from Yugoslavia in 1991.

UN prosecutors regarded him as a key ally of former Yugoslavia President Slobodan Milosevic in a campaign to expel non-Serbs from about a third of Croatian territory and create a Serb-dominated state. Babic testified against Milosevic in 2002.

"He is one of the most critical high-level insiders that the prosecution has been able to produce," said Edgar Chen, from the Coalition for International Justice, which monitors the tribunal.

"This will have an enormous impact on future cases where he would have testified," he said. "He has already provided critical information about Belgrade's involvement in Krajina."

Babic surrendered to the tribunal in 2003 and pleaded guilty in 2004 to participating in a plan to forcibly and permanently remove the non-Serb population from eastern Croatia.

The crimes he admitted to included murder, deportation and unlawful imprisonment of non-Serb civilians, as well as destruction of their property.

"SHAME AND REMORSE"

A dentist by training, Babic fled the Krajina Serb republic when the enclave was recaptured in a Croatian offensive in 1995 called "Operation Storm". Babic had said he felt a "deep sense of shame and remorse" over his actions.

In 2004, the tribunal sentenced Babic to 13 years in prison, but accepted that his admission of guilt and cooperation with the prosecution should count as mitigating factors, having been "at great risk to his family and his own safety".

After the tribunal's appeals chamber confirmed Babic's sentence last year, he was transferred to serve his sentence abroad but brought back to The Hague last month to testify in the trial of Milan Martic, another Croatian Serb.

Martic was also a high-level official of the Krajina Serb republic and is charged with crimes against non-Serb civilians.

Babic testified against Milosevic in 2002. Known only as witness C-061, he initially gave evidence behind a screen.

But judges lifted his protected witness status after Babic's lawyer said his client wanted to reveal his identity to openly counter allegations made by Milosevic and aid reconciliation in the former Yugoslavia.

"Mr Milosevic in 1991 you waged a horrific war. You dragged the Serbian people into that war," Babic told Milosevic's trial in 2002. "You brought shame upon the Serbian people. You brought misfortune on the Croatian people, upon the Muslim people."

Milosevic, charged with genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes in the Balkans in the 1990s, is accused of providing Krajina Serbs with money and military support in a campaign seen as a prelude to the 1992-95 Bosnian war.

Babic was the second ethnic Serb to be sentenced by the tribunal after pleading guilty. Former Bosnian Serb President Biljana Plavsic, who admitted responsibility for atrocities in the Bosnia war, was jailed for 11 years.