Nikola Maric Ordered into Custody

As per the State Court’s decision, Maric, former member of the Croatian Defence Council, HVO, was ordered into custody due to a danger that he might flee and influence witnesses or accomplices.

Maric was arrested due to a suspicion that he participated in murders, persecutions, torture, forced relocation, unlawful detention and abuse of Bosniaks from the Prozor-Rama area during 1992 and 1993.

Also, he is suspected of having participated in the murder and forced disappearance of 11 persons. The State Prosecution alleges that some of those murders were committed in a cruel way and that victims were old and weak people, who were incapable of defending themselves. The bodies of six of those people have still not been found.

As previously announced by the Prosecution of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Maric was unavailable to Bosnian judicial bodies for years. An international warrant was issued against him. It further announced that he had been hiding on the territory of the Republic of Croatia.