Kilde: Parternes argumentation i sagen mod Biljana Plavsic
Uddraget i sagen mod Biljana Plavsic omhandler forsvarerens og anklagerens syn på Biljana Plavsic’s ansvar i forbindelse med forbrydelserne begået i Bosnien.
“With regard to Mrs. Plavsic’s role in the persecutory campaign, the Prosecution stressed that she was not one who beat a detainee or pulled a trigger, nor was she a mid-level bureaucrat who willingly implemented a strategic objective passed down from above: instead she was one of the beacons of those who did, and she imbued them a mission to use criminal means to achieve her vision of a ethnically separated Bosnia. From her leadership position (as co-president and later as a member of the collective and expanded Presidencies), Mrs. Plavsic supported and maintained the governmental and military bodies at the local, municipal, regional and national levels through which the objectives of forcible ethnic separation through a persecutory campaign were implemented. The prosecution noted that among the leaders at the top level of the joint criminal enterprise, there were others whose influence and control was greater than Mrs. Plavsic’s, that she did not participate in the conception and planning of the forcible ethnic separation and that she had a lesser role in its execution. […]
The Prosecution said that the Trial Chamber’s task was to determine a sentence which addresses the conduct of the accused, not only towards the immediate victims but also towards the whole of mankind, in a campaign of persecution which destroyed countless lives and communities: the extent and gravity of such inhumane acts led humanity itself to come under attack and be negated”. […]
The Defence portrayed Mrs. Plavsic as an individual who, by her plea of guilty, has not attempted to avoid her responsibility for the crimes committed and who “is making every effort to see that the truth will come before this Tribunal and before the world. In this respect the Defence referred to the testimonies of Mr. Bildt and Dr. Boraine who described Mrs. Plavsic’s admissions as contributing to establishing the truth about the persecutory campaign and thus aiding the reconciliatory process for individual victims and the region as a whole.” […]