The highest ranking Serb leader to admit crimes against humanity expressed her remorse at the international war crimes tribunal on Monday.

Biljana Plavsic, aged 72, a former Bosnian Serb president, is attending a three-day hearing before judges sentence her to anything up to life in prison.

WITNESSES

Former US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright Swedish diplomat Carl Bildt Former OSCE mission head Robert Frowick Nobel Peace prize winner Elie Wiesel Former Bosnian Serb PM Milorad Dodik Former deputy head of South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Alex Boraine

Mrs Plavsic acknowledged that she covered up crimes and "publicly rationalised and justified the ethnic cleansing of non-Serbs" in a document setting out facts underpinning her guilty plea.

In her opening remarks, chief prosecutor Carla Del Ponte said it was of enormous significance that Mrs Plavsic acknowledged that "horrendous crimes" were committed in Bosnia.

"There is nothing in the nature of a plea of guilty which in any way alters the seriousness of the crimes themselves," she said.

'Inhuman' treatment

Mrs Plavsic, the only woman to appear before the tribunal, was a deputy of wartime Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, who is now at the top of the prosecutors' wanted list.

Radovan Karadzic: Still at large

She was originally charged with genocide, persecution, extermination and deportation - but several charges were dropped after she pleaded guilty to persecution.

Her lawyers said her changed plea showed "her remorse fully and unconditionally".

On Monday, Nobel Peace prize winner and Auschwitz survivor Elie Wiesel addressed the court via a video link from Paris as a prosecution witness.

He urged the judges to consider "the pain and suffering of all the victims" of Bosnia's war when they considered Mrs Plavsic's sentence.

One of the first witnesses was a Bosnian Muslim survivor of a Serb-run detention camp who described what he called "inhuman and really brutal" conditions.

Milosevic role

Mrs Plavsic said Radovan Karadzic and Slobodan Milosevic, then Serbian president, were the masterminds of the ethnic cleansing plan.

Plavsic refuses to testify at Milosevic's trial

Her plea states that Bosnian Serb political leaders "frequently went to Belgrade to consult with, take guidance from or arrange support from Milosevic".

However this information may not help prosecutors involved in Mr Milosevic's trial, who are seeking to establish a link between him and the Bosnian Serb leadership.

Mr Plavsic has made clear that she will not testify at other trials.

Later this week, former US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and the deputy chairman of South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Alex Boraine, will testify to the importance of Mrs Plavsic's guilty plea for the process of reconciliation in Bosnia.

The international community's first envoy in post-war Bosnia, Swedish diplomat Carl Bildt, will testify for the defence, which is likely to focus on Mrs Plavsic's support for the 1995 Dayton peace accord.

No date has been set for sentencing.

Unusual move

Once known as Bosnia's Iron Lady, Mrs Plavsic was famous for defending the ethnic cleansing of non-Serbs as a natural phenomenon.

She gave her support to the Dayton peace process after falling out with Mr Karadzic in the later stages of the Bosnian conflict.

In a highly unusual move in January 2001, Mrs Plavsic handed herself over to the tribunal.

Then, in October, she pleaded guilty to a charge of planning, instigating and aiding in the persecution of Bosnian Muslims and Croats across Bosnia-Hercegovina.

In doing so, she admitted that the Bosnian Serb army worked together with Yugoslav army units during the Bosnian conflict.