The former Bosnian Serb president, Ms Biljana Plavsic, will answer charges of genocide this week after surrendering to the war crimes tribunal for former Yugoslavia in The Hague.
Ms Plavsic (70) is the first woman publicly indicted by the tribunal and the second key figure from the former Bosnian Serb leadership to come to The Hague. Her surrender is a major coup for prosecutors as they close the net on more powerful figures up the Bosnian Serb chain of command.
During the 1992-95 Bosnian war, Ms Plavsic was deputy to the Bosnian Serb leader, Dr Radovan Karadzic. She took over from him when he was forced from office in 1996. Dr Karadzic and his Bosnian Serb military commander, Gen Ratko Mladic, are the tribunal's top Bosnian Serb indictees.
Ms Plavsic flew from the Bosnian Serb capital, Banja Luka, on Tuesday and arrived with her lawyer at the tribunal yesterday morning. She met Ms Del Ponte for brief formalities before being transferred to the tribunal's detention centre at nearby Scheveningen.
She faces charges of genocide, crimes against humanity, violations of the laws and customs of war and grave breaches of the Geneva Convention in Bosnia in 1991 and 1992.