Biljana Plavsic, a Bosnian Serb political figure who served as vice president and later president of Republika Srpska during the Balkan conflicts of the 1990s, has died in Belgrade at the age of 96. The announcement of her death was made by Serbian state media on Thursday, with no further details provided.

Plavsic, a biologist by training and former professor at Sarajevo University, became a prominent and controversial figure during the Yugoslav wars. She was known for combining her academic background in biology with nationalist political rhetoric, at one point describing Bosnia’s Muslim population in derogatory genetic terms and opposing mixed marriages as threatening Serb identity.

During the Bosnian War, Plavsic was a key leader within Republika Srpska, the self-proclaimed Serb entity within Bosnia and Herzegovina, which sought to create ethnically homogeneous territories through violent means. The entity, under the leadership of Radovan Karadzic, was later convicted by the United Nations tribunal for genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. Plavsic served closely alongside Karadzic but eventually split with him over accusations of corruption.

Plavsic’s political role lasted nearly four years as vice president before she assumed the presidency of Republika Srpska in 1996, a position she held with Western backing due to her apparent role in backing the 1995 U.S.-brokered Dayton Peace Accords. Despite her support for peace efforts following the war, Plavsic’s record remained closely tied to ethnic cleansing—a practice she described as a “natural process” of separating peoples to protect their respective ethnic groups.

In 2003, Plavsic pleaded guilty to one count of persecution, classified as a crime against humanity, at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague. As part of a plea bargain, she avoided trial for complicity in genocide and received an 11-year prison sentence. She cooperated with the tribunal and surrendered voluntarily, unlike other indicted figures who evaded justice for years.

During her 2002 sentencing hearing, Plavsic expressed remorse, acknowledging that Serb forces had perpetrated systematic efforts to expel Muslims and Croats from territories they claimed and accepting responsibility for the resulting human suffering. However, after her early release in 2009, she recanted and reaffirmed that she would act similarly if given the chance, a stance described by some analysts and scholars as insincere or “fake remorse.”

Plavsic’s shifting positions deepened divisions in the region. While Western officials, including former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, once viewed her as a symbol of reconciliation for supporting the peace process, many within the Serb community denounced her admissions as betrayals. Her recantation was welcomed by nationalist factions that continue to reject culpability for wartime atrocities.

Born in 1930 in Tuzla, then part of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, Plavsic was raised in Sarajevo and had an extensive academic career, including studies in several international institutions and work in plant virology. Her family background included a nationalist legacy linked to Gavrilo Princip, whose 1914 assassination helped spark World War I.

Her wartime actions and nationalist ideology remain contentious. Scholars have noted that her preoccupation with Serb victimhood often overshadowed acknowledgment of the suffering endured by other ethnic groups during the conflict. Her case exposed broader challenges in delivering international justice in the former Yugoslavia, where distinctions between genocide and other serious crimes continue to provoke debate and hinder reconciliation.

Plavsic lived her final years in Belgrade in relative seclusion and remained married but without children. Her death marks the passing of a figure who played a notable and polarizing role in one of Europe’s most brutal conflicts in recent memory.