U.N. Court Indicts 2nd Croatian General

THE HAGUE —  The U.N. war crimes tribunal announced Thursday that it has indicted a Croatian general, the second one in as many days. Both men are considered heroes in Croatia for defending the country during a war with Serbs in the early 1990s.

As the arrest warrant for retired Gen. Ante Gotovina was being unsealed, Gen. Rahim Ademi pleaded innocent to charges of crimes against humanity. Ademi, whose indictment was made public Wednesday, was the first Croatian citizen accused by the court of committing war crimes in Croatia.

The arrest warrant for Gotovina charged him with eight counts of war crimes linked to alleged atrocities in 1995.

Gotovina is still at large and has refused to surrender, but he has appointed an American attorney to defend him.

Ademi, an ethnic Kosovo Albanian, surrendered to the court Wednesday to face accusations in the killings of dozens of Serbian civilians, including disabled elderly women, during an eight-day rampage in a Serbian community in Croatia in September 1993.

Having changed into a civilian suit from the military uniform he wore for his surrender, Ademi stood before presiding U.N. Judge Almiro Simoes Rodrigues of Portugal and entered a plea of “not guilty” to each of five counts of crimes against humanity and violating the rules of war as they were read aloud by a court clerk.

Beginning in June 1991, Croatia fought a six-month war for independence from Yugoslavia, with rebel Serbs capturing more than one-third of the republic’s territory. In 1993, the Croatian army retook some territory, and in 1995 it won back the bulk of lost land, ending the fighting.