UN/THE HAGUE: Ex-rebel Croatian Serb leader Milan Babic (47) asked Croats to forgive their "brother Serbs" yesterday after pleading guilty to persecuting them in a Serb campaign to seize territory in 1991-92.
Babic, a central figure in the breakaway Krajina Serb republic after Croatia declared independence from Yugoslavia in 1991, confessed at The Hague war crimes tribunal to a crime against humanity in a plea agreement with prosecutors.
UN tribunal prosecutors regard Babic as one of former Serbian and Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic's key allies during a campaign to expel non-Serbs from a third of Croatian territory in the early 1990s.
"I ask from my brother Croats to forgive us, their brother Serbs, and I pray for the Serb people to turn to the future", he said.
Judges still have to decide whether to accept the plea agreement, which proposes that four other counts of war crimes, including murder, should be dismissed against the dentist.
Babic, whose posts in Serb Krajina included prime minister and foreign minister before the enclave was recaptured in a huge Croatian offensive in 1995, told the court he had asked God to help him repent.
"Innocent people were evicted forcibly from their houses and innocent people were killed. Even after I learned what had happened I kept silent. Even worse, I continued in my office and I became personally responsible for the inhumane treatment of innocent people," Babic told the court.