Why do people plead guilty at an international tribunal? And is it common for women to be war criminals? Olivera Simic, professor at Griffith Law School in Brisbane Australia, has chosen a fascinating subject for her latest book: former Bosnian Serb president Biljana Plavsic. She was the only woman to be convicted by the the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, and also the only former high ranking Bosnian Serb politician to plead guilty.

Plavsic has served her time in a Swedish prison. She was later released to Serbia where she moved into the Belgrade neighbourhood Vracar (a neighbourhood Steph knows well).

We focus on how Plavsic interacted with the ICTY, her views on that court and what it says about courts and accountability and guilty pleas.

We also touched on the media post prison media presence of Veselin Sljivancanin and Vojislav Seselj.

The book is called “Madam War Criminal“. It had a great review from Philippe Sands in the Observer. For more context, we previously had a pod – episode 99 – with Alette Smeulers on perpetrators and really early on – episode 4 (!) – we tackled the afterlife of perpetrators with Barbora Hola.

For picks, Olivera recommended our own pod – thank you! – and The New Yorker Radio Hour podcast, Netflix’s I’m a Killer, Peter Beinart ‘s “Being Jewish after the Destruction of Gaza: a Reckoning“, and Gideon Levy’s “The Killing of Gaza: Reports on a Catastrophe“