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Djuro Matuzovic outside court in Sarajevo. Photo: BIRN.
The Croatian presidency has confirmed that President Zoran Milanovic will award the honorary rank of brigadier-general on Wednesday to Djuro Matuzovic, a former commander from the Bosnian Croat wartime force, the Croatian Defence Council, HVO who is currently on trial for alleged involvement in the murder, torture and inhumane treatment of prisoners.
The Croatian president’s spokesperson Nikola Jelic said that Milanovic will honour Matuzovic and another wartime HVO commander, Ilija Nakic, while decorating war veterans on Wednesday.
“Among others, the HV [Croatian Army] and HVO officers you mention, Ilija Nakic and to Djuro Matuzovic, should receive honorary ranks,” Jelic told BIRN by email.
Nakic and Matuzovic were HVO commanders during the 1992-95 war in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Matuzovic is currently on trial alongside nine other Bosnian Croats at the Bosnian state court in Sarajevo for war crimes allegedly committed from the second half of April 1992 to July 1993.
The latest hearing was held on Wednesday, the same day as Matuzovic is expected to be honoured by the Croatian president.
The indictment accuses Matuzovic and the other defendants of participation in murders, torture and inhumane treatment, as well as causing serious suffering and injuries to Serb prisoners in the northern Bosnian city of Orasje. They deny the charges.
They are on trial as former members of the HVO’s military police and police, and as guards in detention centres at the High School Centre in Orasje and the Donja Mahala elementary school in the town, where prisoners were held and allegedly abused.
“The accused are charged with having, during the performance of their duties under their authority, participated in the persecution of the Serb population from the Orasje area on national, ethnic, cultural and religious grounds,” the prosecution said when it announced the indictment.
The arrest of Matuzovic and nine other HVO fighters in Orasje in 2016 caused a political row between the Bosnian and Croatian authorities.
The Croatian Foreign Ministry condemned the arrests and around 1,000 Croat war veterans and their supporters demonstrated in front of the football stadium in Orasje, insisting that during the 1992-95 conflict, Bosnian Croats were fighting a defensive struggle.
The HVO was the armed force of the Croatian Republic of Herzeg-Bosnia, a self-proclaimed Croat-run statelet within Bosnia and Herzegovina. It initially fought against Bosnian Serb forces alongside the Bosniak-led Bosnian Army, but later also fought with its former Bosniak allies.
After the Dayton Peace Agreement, the HVO was designated as the Croat component of the Army of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
In 2005, it was transformed into the 1st Infantry (Guards) Regiment, one of three regiments within the Armed Forces of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
