Biljana Plavšić, former president of Republika Srpska, dies aged 96

Biljana Plavšić, former president of Republika Srpska, died in Belgrade on October 1 at the age of 96, Vreme and Balkan Insight reported. She spent her final years living reclusively in Belgrade.

Born in Tuzla in 1930, she was a biology professor at the University of Sarajevo and in the early 1990s one of the founders of the Serb Democratic Party and a member of the Bosnian Serb wartime leadership. She was president of Republika Srpska from 1996 to 1998.

The Hague verdict

Before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia she pleaded guilty in 2002 to persecution on political, racial and religious grounds as a crime against humanity, and in 2003 was sentenced to 11 years in prison. She served her sentence in Sweden and was released in 2009 after serving two-thirds. She remained the only woman convicted by the tribunal.