Bosnian Serb wartime army chief Ratko Mladic should plead guilty before a UN war crimes court and clear the Serb people of accountability, former Bosnian Serb leader Biljana Plavsic said Thursday.

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"Mladic should take over his part of responsibility, acknowledge things for which he is guilty and clear the Serb people of any accountability," Plavsic told the NIN weekly in a rare interview.

However, Plavsic did not elaborate what crimes she was referring to.

Mladic was transferred to the UN war crimes court in The Hague in late May following the arrest in a Serbian village after almost 16 years on the run.

The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) charged him with genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes during Bosnia's 1992-1995 war. He is set to enter a plea on Monday.

Mladic is accused notably over the 1995 Srebrenica massacre of over 8,000 Muslim males, the worst atrocity in Europe since World War II, and the 44-month siege of Sarajevo.

"I don't say that he is guilty of the events in Srebrenica since someone within the international community needed that massacre," Plavsic, 80, told the weekly.

"At the time I did not know what was happening in Srebrenica. I was focused on the events in (the western Bosnian town of) Bihac where I went. On my way back I saw Mladic (in Srebrenica) on television giving orders and I asked myself: What is this?"

Asked why she did not talk to Mladic about his activities in Srebrenica, Plavsic replied: "I know what kind of person Mladic is, it was not possible to call him and ask: What have you done?"

Plavsic herself served six years of an 11-year sentence after pleading guilty before the ICTY for playing a leading role in a campaign of persecution against Croats and Muslims during Bosnia's 1992-1995 war. She was granted early release in 2009.

The former Bosnian Serb president is the highest ranking official of the former Yugoslavia to have acknowledged responsibility for atrocities committed in the Balkan wars of the 1990s.

Source: AFP