UN WAR CRIMES COURT SET TO UNVEIL FINAL VERDICT
THE HAGUE— Six former Bosnian Croat political and military leaders will learn on Wednesday their fate as United Nations judges hand down their final verdict for war crimes committed during the bloody breakup of Yugoslavia.
The appeals judgment in the case of Jadranko Prlic and five others will end two decades of work by the International Criminal Court of Yugoslavia, set up during the Balkan wars to prosecute Europe’s worst atrocities since World War II.
‘Butcher of Bosnia’
It comes a week after the judges imposed a life sentence on former Bosnian Serb military commander Ratko Mladic, whose ruthlessness in the conflict earned him the title the “Butcher of Bosnia.”
Breakaway statelet
Prlic, the former “prime minister” of a breakaway statelet, and his five codefendants were found guilty in 2013 on 26 charges of taking part in a scheme to remove Bosnian Muslims “permanently and create a Croatian territory,” which included the besieged southern city of Mostar.
Prlic, 58, who led the “Croatian Republic of Herceg-Bosna,” has appealed his 25-year term. The five others are also appealing long prison sentences.
The 1992-1995 war in Bosnia, in which 100,000 people died and 2.2 million were displaced, pitted Bosnian Muslims against Bosnian Serbs, but also saw some brutal fighting between Bosnian Muslims and Bosnian Croats.—