Croatian Serb rebel leader Goran Hadzic, arrested in Serbia on 20 July and transferred to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) two days later, will appear before the Hague-based UN tribunal on 24 August to enter a plea for crimes against humanity he and forces under his command committed during the occupation of parts of Croatia in the early 1990s.
On 25 July, during his initial appearance before the tribunal, Hadzic, who was captured after being on the run for seven years, exercised his right not to enter a plea so the UN war crimes tribunal scheduled a new plea entry hearing for next Wednesday.
In the meantime, Hadzic, charged according to his individual as well as command responsibility with crimes against humanity, has asked the tribunal to pay for his defence and approve his request for a counsel of his own choosing.
The tribunal has issued a 14-count indictment against Hadzic, who is charged with being a member of a joint criminal enterprise which Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic organised with an aim of forcibly and permanently removing Croats and other non-Serbs from one third of Croatia's territory, which was occupied by rebel Serbs supported by Belgrade during in the first half of the 1990s.
