War criminal drinks poison in courtroom
NETHERLANDS: A convicted war criminal killed himself by drinking poison in the dock yesterday, moments after judges upheld his 20-year jail sentence at the final session of the United Nations Yugoslav tribunal.
Slobodan Praljak, 72, produced a small brown bottle after shouting that he rejected his conviction. He swallowed the contents, and died several hours later in hospital.
Praljak was one of six former Bosnian Croat political and military leaders appealing their convictions by the court in The Hague for crimes against humanity during the bloody conflict of 1992-95.
The former film-maker and theatre director, who became a major-general and deputy defence minister of Croatia during the conflict, had been sentenced in 2013 for crimes in east Mostar.
The presiding judge, Carmel Agius, had overturned some of Praljak’s many convictions yesterday, including a finding that the destruction of Mostar’s iconic bridge was a wanton act not justified by a military objective. His role in rounding up and facilitating the murder of Bosnian Muslims was confirmed, however.
After hearing the verdict, Praljak, who was standing, shouted: ‘‘Judges, Slobodan Praljak is not a war criminal. With disdain, I oppose this conviction.’’
Agius asked him to ‘‘Stop please, please sit down’’ as Praljak suddenly threw back his head and drank from a small bottle he was holding in his right hand. ‘‘I have taken poison,’’ he told the court.
The judge ordered the proceedings to be suspended and curtains to be lowered to block the view of the public and media watching from behind a glass screen. He ordered the seizure of the bottle, and an ambulance was called.
Resuming the hearing a few hours later, Agius said Dutch authorities had begun an investigation. ‘‘Courtroom one is now a crime scene,’’ he said.
The poison used had not been immediately established, nor how it came into Praljak’s possession. All visitors to the court are subject to airport-style security, which focuses on scanning metallic objects. ‘‘Pills and small quantities of liquids’’ would not be registered, said Toma Fila, a prominent Serbian lawyer.
Praljak and five co-defendants, including Jadranko Prlic, the former ‘‘prime minister’’ of a Bosnian Croat breakaway statelet, were found guilty in 2013 on 26 charges of taking part in a scheme to remove Bosnian Muslims ‘‘permanently and create a Croatian territory’’. They were appealing against sentences of between 10 and 25 years. – The Times