Bosnian Croat Military Police Chief Challenges Conviction

Valentin Coric, the wartime chief of the Military Police Administration of the Croatian Defence Council, the armed forces of the self-proclaimed Croatian Republic of Herzeg-Bosnia wartime statelet, asked the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in The Hague on Friday to overturn his conviction.

Under the first instance verdict in 2013, Coric was found guilty of having participated, along with five other Herzeg-Bosnia leaders, in a joint criminal enterprise against Bosniaks in western Herzegovina and central Bosnia in 1993 and 1994.

Coric’s defence lawyer Dragan Ivetic denied that the defendant participated in a joint criminal enterprise, saying that the crimes committed in the Gornji Vakuf area, at the Heliodrom detention camp or in the town of Mostar were “isolated incidents”, and that the victims were “collateral damage in the conflict”.

“Coric had no authority in military operations, even if military police forces were used,” Ivetic said.

When informed about crimes committed by the Croatian Defence Council, Coric “reacted in an appropriate manner” and removed the perpetrators from their units, he said, adding that the military police chief had filed 2,000 criminal reports against Bosnian Croat troops.

“Even if he knew about the crimes, whose commission was not his intention, Coric cannot be found guilty as a member of a joint criminal enterprise,” Ivetic insisted.

He also said that the Croatian Defence Council could not have occupied parts of Bosnia and Herzegovina because it was actually “an equal and constitutional part” of the country’s armed forces.

Ivetic said that Bosnian President Alija Izetbegovic declared the Croatian Defence Council a part of the Bosnian Army in 1993.

However prosecutors told the court on Friday that Coric had used his position to commit crimes, instead of stopping or punishing them.

They insisted that fighters under Coric’s command, persecuted, detained, killed, tortured, sexually abused Bosniaks.

Instead of punishing the perpetrators, Coric protected them, they alleged.

More than 2,000 military policemen under Coric’s control took part in crimes in Gornji Vakuf, Stolac and Capljina, expelled Bosniaks from Mostar and besieged parts of the town, according to the prosecutors.

He also set up the Heliodrom, Ljubuski and Dretelj detention camps, where his military policemen tortured and robbed Bosniaks, they further alleged.

Coric is among six former high-ranking Herzeg-Bosna political and military officials who are appealing against their convictions.

Coric, Jadranko Prlic, Brono Stojic, Milivoje Petkovic, Slobodan Praljak, Valentin Coric and Berislav Pusic were all convicted in May 2013 of crimes against humanity, violations of the laws or customs of war, and grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions committed between 1992 and 1994.

They were found guilty of taking part in a joint criminal enterprise involving Herzeg-Bosna officials and led by Croatian President Franjo Tudjman.

The joint criminal enterprise was aimed at establishing “a Croatian entity whose borders would partially follow the borders of the Banate of Croatia from 1939” through the forcible and permanent deportation of the Bosniak population from eight municipalities in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The prosecution will also appeal on Tuesday, hoping to persuade the judges to almost double the men’s sentences.