Longest Tribunal Case Closes
Prosecution asks for terms of between 25 and 40 years for six Bosnian Croat defendants.
Longest Tribunal Case Closes
Prosecution asks for terms of between 25 and 40 years for six Bosnian Croat defendants.
The trial of six senior Bosnian Croat officials - the longest case heard at the Hague tribunal to date - came to a close this week.
All were senior political and military leaders in what was known as Herceg-Bosna, HB, and face 26 counts of war crimes for the expulsion and murder of Muslims in Bosnia during the Croatian-Muslim conflict in 1993.
HB was declared a distinct Croat “community” within Bosnia in 1991, and claimed republic status two years later.
The indictment accuses Jadranko Prlic, Bruno Stojic, Slobodan Praljak, Milivoj Petkovic, Valentin Coric and Berislav Pusic of being part of a “joint criminal enterprise”.
The aim, the indictment states, was “to politically and militarily subjugate, permanently remove and ethnically cleanse Bosnian Muslims and other non-Croats” in the part of Bosnia that was claimed as part of HB, and “to join these areas as part of a ‘Greater Croatia’”.
The joint criminal enterprise, the indictment continues, was “to engineer the political and ethnic map of these areas so that they would be Croat-dominated, both politically and demographically”.
The six individuals are accused of using “force, fear or threat of force, persecution, imprisonment and detention, forcible transfer and deportation, appropriation and destruction of property and other means” to achieve their aims.
The indictment focuses on alleged crimes committed in the municipalities of Prozor, Gornji Vakuf, Jablanica, Mostar, Ljubuški, Stolac, Capljina and Vares.
The trial began on April 26, 2006, with the prosecution case closing on February 6, 2008, and has been presided over by Judge Jean-Claude Antonetti.
The prosecution has asked for sentences of 40 years each for former HB president Prlic, former HB defence department head Stojic, senior Croatian army officer Praljak and military head of the HB armed forces Petkovic. They have also asked for terms of 35 years for former HB interior minister Coric and 25 years for Pusic, who served as chief of the HB service for the exchange of prisoners.
This week prosecutor Kenneth Scott, replying to the closing statements of the defence teams, reminded the court that this “criminal enterprise started from the nationalist fraction in the [ruling Croat Democratic Union party] HDZ, whose aim was to conquer certain parts of Bosnia-Hercegovina within the borders of the 1939 Banovina of Croatia and divide Bosnia and Hercegovina”.
The term banovina refers to a province of the kingdom of Yugoslavia between 1939 and 1943, which included much of present-day Croatia along with portions of Bosnia and Serbia.
“This territory was to be made to look, sound and feel Croatian,” Scott added.
The prosecutor reminded the tribunal that the six defendants “although not having stained their hands in blood, were responsible for plans which have led to the spilling of blood of many.
“Every one of them had a personal role in creating conditions which helped spread crimes against Muslims in places such as Prozor, Soldici, Doljani, western Mostar, Ljubuski, Stolac, Capljina.
The trial chamber heard closing words from Prlic, who said that “having reconsidered everything I did during the war, I have come to the conclusion that I didn't do anything which I wouldn't do again.
“The Herceg-Bosna leadership did everything we could to ease the consequences of warfare and destruction and did everything necessary to punish the perpetrators of these crimes.
“Those who suffered deserve all compassion and justice.”
A trial chamber verdict in the case is expected early next year.
Velma Saric is an IWPR-trained journalist in Sarajevo.
