Wartime Croatian Serb rebel leader Goran Hadzic has declined to enter a plea to war crimes charges in his first appearance at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) on Monday.

"Your honour, Mr. Hadzic is not going to enter a plea today," his lawyer Vladimir Petrovic told the judge.

Judge O-Gon Kwon said that a second arraignment hearing would be scheduled within 30 days. An automatic "not guilty" plea will be entered on Hadzic's behalf if he again does not enter a plea.

Hadzic, now 52, was arrested in Serbia last Wednesday after seven years on the run, and was handed over to UN authorities in Friday.

Plans to 'permanently' remove Croats from Krajina

He faces 14 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed between 1991 and 1995. He is held responsible for the deportation of tens of thousands of Croats and non-Serbs by troops under his command and the massacre and torture in 1991 of nearly 260 Croat and non-Serb prisoners at Vukovar following a three-month siege of the town.

Hadzic, the one-time president of the self-proclaimed Republic of Serbian Krajina in Croatia, had plans to “permanently remove” most Croats and other non-Serbs from one-third of Croatia's territory to make it part of a Serb-dominated state.

Hadzic has also been charged with the persecution and murder of dozens of other Croats, including "women and elderly persons."

In addition, he has been charged with the detention of thousands of Croats and non-Serbs in prison camps. There the prisoners suffered dreadful conditions, including starvation and forced labor, and faced constant assaults, including mock executions, torture, beatings and sexual assault.

Hadzic's arrest marks an 18-year manhunt to detain all 161 suspects indicted before the ICTY on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity carried out during the Balkan wars. Proceedings against 126 others have already been concluded. The ICTY was set up by the UN Security Council in 1993.

Author: Wilhelmina Lyffyt (Reuters, AFP)
Editor: Andrew Bowen