Croatian general pleads not guilty to war crimes

? A former Croatian general arrested on war crimes charges pleaded not guilty Monday to seven counts of murder, persecution and expulsion of Serbs during the critical final months of the Croatian war in 1995.

Ante Gotovina, 50, who was arrested last week in the Canary Islands after four years on the run, has been accused of giving his troops unrestrained freedom to plunder villages when they retook the eastern frontier region, which Croatia’s Serbian minority had proclaimed an independent state. He could be sentenced to up to life imprisonment if convicted.

He had been third on the tribunal’s most-wanted list, preceded only by the Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic and his top commander Ratko Mladic, who are both accused of genocide and still at large.

One by one, Gotovina replied, “your honor, not guilty,” to the charges, including the killing of 150 Serbs during fighting to retake Croatia’s eastern frontier region, the Krajina, which was seized by rebel Serbs at the start of the 1991-1995 war.