The former film director who gave the deadly order to ‘show no mercy’

‘Sort out the situation in Vareš showing no mercy towards anyone’

SLOBODAN PRALJAK was an accomplished academic before he ever became a soldier.

Born in 1945 and raised in Zagreb, he acquired three degrees – in engineering, philosophy and drama – in quick succession in his twenties. He enjoyed a career as a writer and theatre and film director before volunteering for the newly formed Croatian army as Yugoslavia descended into war in 1991.

Praljak rose to become an adviser to the minister of defence, and in 1993 he joined the Croatian Defence Council (HVO), the armed forces of the Bosniancroat breakaway state known as Herzeg-bosnia that was embroiled in the three-way war then raging in Bosnia.

It was his role as a senior officer during the HVO’S 1993 to 1994 siege of eastern Mostar, in which thousands of civilians were trapped with little access to food or water for months, that later saw him convicted of war crimes.

The siege notoriously saw the city’s iconic Old Bridge destroyed by Croat tank fire – an act which the court that convicted Praljak said “caused disproportionate damage to the Muslim civilian population”. The court on Tuesday accepted his argument that the bridge was a legitimate military target.

Most notorious was his order, in October 1993, to “sort out the situation in Vareš showing no mercy towards anyone”. Shortly after, HVO troops massacred at least 37 Bosnian Muslims in Stupni Do, a village near Vareš.

Praljak went into business after the war, acquiring assets including a hotel, office blocks and a restaurant.

He turned himself in to the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in 2004.