Former high-level leaders of the Bosnian-Croat wartime entity Herceg-Bosna have been convicted to a total of 111 years imprisonment by the trial chamber of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY).
Jadranko Prlić, Bruno Stojić, Slobodan Praljak, Milivoj Petković, Valentin Ćorić and Berislav Pušić were accused of crimes against humanity and war crimes including murder, rape, deportation and forcible transfer committed against Bosnian Muslims and other non-Croats from 1992 to 1994.
All of them were found guilty of participation in a joint criminal enterprise whose purpose was to politically and military subjugate, permanently remove and ethnically cleanse Bosnian Muslims and other non-Croats who lived in the municipalities of Prozor, Gornji Vakuf, Jablanica, Mostar, Ljubuški, Stolac, Čapljina and Vareš.
The ICTY sentenced Prlić, the head of the entity to 25 years in prison; Stojić, Petković and Praljak to 20 years; Ćorić to 16 years and Pušić to 10 years.
The court said that the Prilć et al. trial has been one of the tribunal’s largest and most intricate cases. The trial against the six top leaders of Herceg-Bosna commenced in 2006 after all six convicted surrendered in April 2004.
The ICTY judgment comes a little over a month before Croatia joins the European Union on 1 July.
