Prosecutors Demand Longer Sentences for Bosnian Croat Leaders

The prosecution called on the appeals chamber of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia on Tuesday to jail Jadranko Prlic, Bruno Stojic, Slobodan Praljak and Milivoje Petkovic for 40 years each, Valentin Coric for 35 years and Berislav Pusic for 25 years for wartime crimes against Bosniaks in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Prosecutor Barbara Goy said the first-instance sentences that were handed down in 2013 – when the six men were jailed for a total of 111 years – were “totally inappropriate” considering the gravity of their crimes.

Goy pointed out that they were found guilty of a campaign aimed at expelling “tens of thousands” of Bosniaks from eight municipalities in Western Herzegovina and central Bosnia from the spring of 1993 to the spring of 1994.

The campaign included murders, rape, deportations, inhumane treatment, unlawful detention, inhumane acts, destruction and confiscation of property, wanton destruction of cities, towns or villages, as well as cultural and religious buildings, forced labour and unlawful terror against civilians.

Prlic was the Herzeg-Bosna prime minister, Stojic was its defence minister, Praljak was chief of the Croatian Defence Council’s Main Headquarters, Petkovic was the deputy commander of the Croatian Defence Council and Coric was commander of the Croatian Defence Council military police.

According to the first instance verdict, they participated in a joint criminal enterprise led by Croatian President Franjo Tudjman, aimed at establishing “a Croatian entity, whose borders would partially follow the borders of the Banate of Croatia from 1939,” by forcibly and permanently expelling the Bosniak population.

Goy said that they were “the architects” of the criminal enterprise, who played “a key role” in its execution.

Croat forces arrested thousands of Bosniaks and unlawfully detained them in “a network of brutal detention centres”, where they brutally mistreated them, sexually abused them, forced them to work on the frontline and killed them, the prosecutor said.

“The youngest victim was 13 years old,” she added.

However the men’s defence lawyers urged the court to reject the prosecutors’ appeal, saying that even the first-instance sentences were too harsh.

They insisted that there was no criminal association and that the six men were not responsible for the crimes committed.

There is no deadline for pronouncing the verdict, but the court’s decision is expected by the end of this year, when the Hague Tribunal will close down.

The trial of the six men is the longest and will be the last in the history of the Tribunal.