The wartime commander of Bosnia's Muslim army pleaded not guilty at The Hague war crimes tribunal today to charges of responsibility for the murder and rape of Croats and Serbs by foreign Islamic fighters.
General Rasim Delic, charged with four counts of violations of the laws or customs of war, pleaded not guilty to responsibility for the murder, cruel treatment and rape of Croats and Serbs by forces under his command during the 1992-95 Bosnian war.
Delic surrendered to the UN tribunal on Monday to face the charges. He got a rousing send-off from government officials and hundreds of war veterans in Sarajevo before boarding his plane en route to The Hague.
Bosnian Prime Minister Adnan Terzic, Muslim officials and war veterans had gathered from dawn to bid farewell to him.
The Bosnian Muslims were heavily outgunned and suffered by far the highest casualties in the 1992-95 war. Hundreds of foreign fighters, who called themselves "Mujahideen", fought alongside them in what they saw as an unequal war tolerated by the West and aimed at wiping out fellow Muslims.
Tribunal prosecutors accuse Delic of being responsible for war crimes by foreign fighters under his command, including the killing of at least 24 Bosnian Croats outside the village of Maline in June 1993.
The indictment also says Delic failed to prevent crimes at the Kamenica prison camp, where prosecutors say the foreign fighters killed and captured Bosnian Serb soldiers and raped and sexually assaulted three women.
Delic is the sixth Bosnian Muslim charged with war crimes in the conflict, in which between 150,000 and 200,000 people were killed.
The tribunal has altogether indicted more than 120 people from the former Yugoslavia, most of them Serbs.