Bosnian Croat War Criminal Freed

Naletilic was released from the Italian prison where he had been serving his sentence and flew from Rome to Split on Monday evening.

He was given early release after he served two-thirds of his 20-year prison term for participating in a campaign of ethnic cleansing in Bosnia in 1993.

Naletilic, who served 13 years and four months in jail, was sentenced by the Hague tribunal together with his military subordinate Vinko Martinovic, in 2003 for wartime crimes including persecution on political, racial and religious grounds, torture, wanton destruction and plunder.

Naletilic, the commander of the ‘Convicts’ Battalion’ of the Croatian Defense Council, HVO, was found to have ordered the destruction of Bosniak houses in the village of Doljani in April 1993 and forcibly removed around 400 Bosniak civilians from the villages of Sovici and Doljani in May 1993.