Milan Babic admitted persecution of non-Serbs

Babic, 47, pleaded guilty to charges of persecuting non-Serbs in a deal with prosecutors on Tuesday.

The court agreed to drop four charges of murder, cruelty and the wanton destruction of villages during the war in Croatia in the early 1990s.

The prosecution has recommended that Babic serve 11 years in prison. He is due to be sentenced in April.

Judge Alphons Orie told Babic: "This chamber finds you guilty on count one of the indictment issued on 6 November, 2003: persecutions on political, racial and religious grounds, a crime against humanity."

Remorse

Babic showed some remorse in a statement to the tribunal on Tuesday.

He said he had allowed himself "to take part in the worst kind of persecution of people simply because they were Croats and not Serbs".

Babic asked Croats to forgive "their brother Serbs".

The charges relate to a Serb revolt in Krajina against Croatian independence, between 1991 and 1992.

Babic was briefly president of the "Republic of Serb Krajina".

He was an ally of former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, who is himself on trial for alleged war crimes. But Babic testified against Mr Milosevic at his trial in The Hague in 2002.

Killings

As part of the plea-bargaining, Babic signed a confession in which he admitted he was aware of the forced eviction and persecution of Croats; that he helped spread pro-Serb propaganda; and that he helped distribute weapons among the Serb population.

In one of the incidents, prosecutors say Serb forces killed 56 civilians near the village of Bacin.

More than 78,000 Croats and about 2,000 Muslims lived in Krajina in 1991.

According to the indictment against Mr Babic, almost all the non-Serb population "was forcibly removed, deported or killed" within a year.