A year in which the legacy of Croatia’s Nazi-allied World War II regime continued to cause controversy erupted into political turmoil when Bosnian Croat general Slobodan Praljak committed suicide in The Hague.
The year in Croatia came to a close with an outburst of discontent after the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, ICTY convicted six former Bosnian Croat officials of committing crimes in Bosnia and Herzegovina during the war and implicated Croatia’s former president.
On November 29, the ICTY upheld the first-instance verdict convicting the six men, all former political or military officials from the self-proclaimed wartime Croat-led statelet of Herzeg-Bosnia, of a series of crimes against Bosniaks.
Jadranko Prlic was sentenced 25 years, Bruno Stojic, Slobodan Praljak and Milivoj Petkovic 20 each, while Valentin Coric and Berislav Pusic received 16 and ten years in prison respectively.
But in a dramatic turn of events, after being declared guilty in the courtroom, Praljak announced: “Slobodan Praljak is not a war criminal. With indignation, I reject your verdict.”
He then swallowed some liquid from a small bottle which turned out to be poison, and died in a nearby hospital in The Hague. Both the Dutch police and the Tribunal have opened investigations into how it was possible for him to commit suicide.
For more read the full of article at The Balkaninsight
