2 Serbs Plead Not Guilty to War Crimes

Two Bosnian Serbs pleaded not guilty to war crimes charges but openly thanked U.S. diplomats and NATO troops to whom they surrendered Saturday. Miroslav Tadic, 61, and Milan Simic, 40, are the first Bosnian Serbs to turn themselves over voluntarily to the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia. In a brief initial appearance before the U.N. court in The Hague, both men denied charges that they had taken part in a campaign of terror in 1992 aimed at driving Muslims and Croats away from the Bosnian town of Bosanski Samac. U.N. prosecutors allege that Tadic planned and prepared the expulsion from the area of hundreds of Croats and Muslims. They allege that Simic took part in the repeated beating of a Muslim man with iron bars and chair legs.