Croatian Serb Leader Moved to Estonian Jail

The former wartime leader of Croatian Serbs, Milan Martic, was transported to Estonia late on Friday to serve out his 35- year sentence for war crimes committed in Croatia.

The transport of Martic from the Hague prison unit to Estonia is in line with the deal between the Estonian authorities and the UN, which deals with the implementation of the verdicts by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague.

Martic will serve his sentence in a prison in the eastern Estonian town of Tartu.

Martic was indicted by the ICTY in July 1995, but surrendered in 2002. He pleaded not guilty to all counts from the indictment, which included murder, persecution, inhumane treatment, forced displacement, plunder of public or private property and wanton destruction of cities, towns or villages.

According to the indictment, Martic "helped organize an ethnic cleansing campaign of Croats and other non-Serbs from Krajina where 78,000 lived and virtually the entire non-Serb population was forcibly removed, deported or killed". His trial started in December 2005and ended in January 2007.

Martic was the last president of the self-declared Serb republic of Krajina until the summer of 1995, when Croatian troops took control of the area. Until then, almost 30 per cent of Croatia's territory was controlled by the breakaway Serb republic.

During the war in Croatia, Martic held various leadership positions, including president, defense minister and interior minister. Since he left Croatia, Martic has been living in Bosnia and Serbia.