The UN war crimes court granted her early release for good behaviour from the 11-year sentence it passed in 2003. Plavsic, 79, known as the “Iron Lady”, was the highest-ranking official from the former Yugoslavia to have pleaded guilty for her part in the Bosnian War.
She left Sweden as soon as she was released from the Swedish prison, officials said. The head of the Swedish Prison and Probation Service, Lars Nylen, said Plavsic was “was happy to be released”. He confirmed that she was taken to Arlanda airport, but did not comment on reports that she had flown to Belgrade.
When plans for her early release were announced in September, the president of The Hague tribunal cited good behaviour and “substantial evidence of rehabilitation”.
During the Bosnian war, Plavsic was known as the “Serbian Iron Lady” because of her hardline nationalism and rabidly anti-Muslim views. She was also one of the closest allies of former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, himself accused of war crimes.
Her release came on the second day of his trial, which is due to resume in The Hague. Mr Karadzic did not attend on the opening day, and judges urged him to be present. In prison, Plavsic wrote a book describing the events that led up to the Bosnian war.
In the book, I Testify, published in 2005, she called on Mr Karadzic and General Ratko Mladic to surrender to the UN court in The Hague.
She described Mr Karadzic as a “coward”, but Gen Mladic as a “great man” who “should defend the Serb people and his soldiers before The Hague tribunal even at the cost of sacrificing himself”.
Mr Karadzic was captured in July 2008, but Gen Mladic remains at large.
