BERSERKISTAN

Berserkistan Navigator War Crimes Profile: Dusan Tadic
Trial Status: Ongoing
Present Whereabouts: Scheveningen Prison,
The Netherlands

Dusan Tadic Dusan Tadic, the Bosnian Serb accused of war crimes, pleaded not guilty yesterday to charges of murder, torture and rape. Behind a bulletproof screen, Tadic, 39, told the Yugoslav War Crimes Tribunal in the Hague: "I never took part the crimes with which I'm charged." The United Nations-sponsored tribunal is the first of its type since the end of the Second World War, and Tadic, a former bar owner and karate expert, is the first defendant to face it.

He is accused of murdering and torturing Muslim prisoners while a guard in the Omarska camp set up by the Serbs near Prijedor, north-west Bosnia, during their ethnic cleansing campaign in the spring and summer of 1992. Tadic, who was arrested in Munich in February, 1994 after being spotted by Bosnian refugees, denies he was ever at the camp. He is also accused of rape, the first time the offence has been classed as a war crime in an international court.

In one incident, Tadic is accused with others of having forced a Muslim prisoner to bite off a testicle of another inmate while other Muslims pinned down the victim and gagged him. Four prisoners were later to die of injuries suffered during the torture session, the tribunal claims.

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