Convicted war criminal and former RS President Biljana Plavsic to be buried in Banja Luka

A commemoration service is scheduled to take place at 11:00 at the Banski Dvor, followed by the funeral at 1 pm at the City Cemetery in Banja Luka.

The Government of Republika Srpska formed a dedicated Funeral Committee to organise the commemoration and burial ceremonies. The decision to establish the committee was passed during a telephone session of the Government of Republika Srpska.

Plavsoc's body was transferred from Belgrade to Banja Luka, following a memorial service held in Belgrade on Tuesday.

Former RS President and Alliance of Independent Social Democrats (SNSD) leader Milorad Dodik previously announced that Plavsic would be buried in Banja Luka, stating that she "deserves all honours".

She served as a member of the Presidency of the then Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, held a key role in the wartime Bosnian Serb leadership, and later became the president of Republika Srpska after the war.

Before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague, she pleaded guilty to persecuting Bosniaks, Croats, and other non-Serb populations on political, racial, and religious grounds.

The Hague Tribunal sentenced her to 11 years in prison in 2003. The verdict noted that she accepted individual criminal responsibility for persecutions committed across dozens of municipalities in Bosnia and Herzegovina throughout 1992.

Upon pleading guilty, Plavsic stated that she accepted responsibility after being satisfied that thousands of innocent people were victims of an organised and systematic effort to remove Bosniaks and Croats from territories claimed by Bosnian Serbs.

She served her sentence in Sweden and was released in 2009 after serving two-thirds of her term.

Plavsic later publicly questioned the sincerity of her guilty plea, claiming she had entered it solely to receive a lighter sentence.

During the war, she operated within the top political leadership of the Bosnian Serbs alongside Radovan Karadzic and Momcilo Krajisnik, both of whom were also convicted by final judgments of the Hague Tribunal.