The prosecution has asked for long prison sentences for the former Herceg Bosna leaders, ranging from 25 to 40 years
Institute for the Research of Genocide Canada
Published: February 14, 2011
PROSECUTION ASKS FOR 220 YEARS’ IMPRISONMENT FOR HERCEG BOSNA LEADERS
Kenneth Scott, prosecutor in the case of the former Herzeg Bosnia leaders
The prosecution has asked for long prison sentences for the former Herceg Bosna leaders, ranging from 25 to 40 years. The six accused are charged with the HVO crimes against Bosnian Muslims in 1993 and 1994 in Central Bosnia and Western Herzegovina.
The prosecution has asked for long prison sentences for the six former Herceg Bosna leaders: 40 years for Jadranko Prlic, Bruno Stojic, Slobodan Praljak and Milivoj Petkovic, 35 years for Valentin Coric and 25 for Berislav Pusic.
Concluding his closing arguments, prosecutor Kenneth Scott noted that the six people in the dock may look ‘like regular Sunday churchgoers’, but during the conflict – when they instigated, ordered and abetted the ethnic cleansing in the Herceg Bosna area – the six accused were just nothing but ‘bullies’.
‘This is your best chance to say – never more’, the prosecutor told judges Jean-Claude Antonetti from France, Stefan Trechsel from Switzerland and Arpad Prandler from Hungary. The prosecutor reminded the judges of the victims: the Tribunal was established for their sake, yet their voices are growing weaker. ‘Our task is to seek justice on their behalf as those who help the helpless’, the prosecutor noted.
In the first part of the hearing today, prosecutor Douglas Stringer talked about the roles of Valentin Coric and Berislav Pusic and their contributions to the joint criminal enterprise aimed at creating Herceg Bosna. As Stringer said, Coric ‘is hiding behind his office desk’ claiming he was just a ‘bureaucrat’, that he didn’t have any control over the military police and that he didn’t know about the crimes – although he was the head of the HVO military police.
According to the prosecutor, the evidence showed that Coric regularly received reports about the situations in the field and that he was well aware of the mass expulsion of Muslims from Western to Eastern Mostar. Coric knew very well that they were detained and abused in Dretelj, Ljubuski, Heliodrom and Gabela.Coric also knew about the poor conditions in the HVO prisons and prison camps and he knew that prisoners were taken to do forced labor at the front lines.
During the trial not much was heard about Berislav Pusic, the last accused. The prosecutor argued that Pusic was not ‘just a cog in the HVO machinery’ as his lawyers claimed in the final brief. As the head of the Commission for the Exchange of Prisoners, Pusic actively participated at ‘high-level’ meetings, prosecutor Pieter Kruger noted. The prosecutor illustrated the claim with the recordings from those meetings and documents that confirmed his contacts with the then Croatian foreign minister Mate Granic.
The prosecutor stressed that Pusic’s claims that he ‘lied about his powers’ in his previous interviews should not be believed. If Pusic lied earlier, why he should be trusted now, the prosecutor asked, noting also Pusic’s reputation at the time of the conflict.
According to the documents produced by the intelligence service, the SIS, in 1992 Pusic was known as ‘Berko Pusic a/k/a 200 Deutschmarks’. Pusic earned the nickname because of the amount he charged the Serb detainees for their liberty. As time went by, the amount went up and in 1993 Pusic could earn up to 8,000 German marks per Muslim detainee.
PRALJAK’S GOODBYE TO HERCEG BOSNA
The prosecutor concluded his arguments about Praljak’s responsibility by recalling Praljak’s exit from the stage, from the post of commander of the HVO Main Staff on 9 November 1993. According to the prosecutor, General Milivoj Petkovic was also ‘loyal and committed’ to the joint criminal enterprise
As the closing argument at the trial of the former Bosnian Croat leader, the prosecutor focused on the involvement of two former commanders of the HVO Main Staff, Slobodan Praljak and Milivoj Petkovic, in the joint criminal enterprise. Crimes against civilians in 1993 and 1994 in Central Bosnia and Western Herzegovina were a part of it.
Prosecutor Douglas Stringer referred to Praljak’s responsibility for the ethnic cleansing of Muslims from Stolac, Capljina, Ljubuski and Prozor, the detention and cruel treatment of prisoners in HVO prisons and prison camps and their use as forced labor on the front lines. According to the prosecution, the evidence shows that Praljak not only knew of those crimes but also abetted them and accepted them as a means to establishing an autonomous entity in BH under the Croat control.
The prosecutor concluded the arguments about Praljak’s responsibility by recalling Praljak’s departure from the post of the commander of the HVO Main Staff on 9 November 1993. ‘As a man of theater who likes drama, he exited the stage in the best possible way: by training the tank barrels at the Old Bridge and pounding it into the River Neretva on the day he left Herceg Bosna’.
Prosecutor Kimberly West went on to describe the role of Milivoj Petkovic, Praljak’s predecessor at the post of the commander of the HVO Main Staff. Petkovic’s presence at various meetings with Franjo Tudjman and sessions of the Herceg Bosna government where the goals of the joint criminal enterprise were discussed shows that Petkovic was not only a military but also a political leader in Herceg Bosna, according to the prosecution.
The prosecutor spoke about the claims made by Petkovic’s defense that he didn’t play a particularly important part in the Herceg Bosna armed forces, but was merely a sort of Mate Boban’s assistant, or his ‘puppet’. The prosecutor noted that Petkovic himself said in his evidence at the trial of Tihomir Blaskic and Dario Kordic that he had power over his commanders. Even if Petkovic had been nothing but Boban’s assistant, he cannot avoid responsibility for what soldiers under his command did, the prosecutor argued.
As a former JNA officer, Petkovic knew that the order to arrest all Muslims of military age on 30 June 2021 was illegal but didn’t refuse to obey it, the prosecutor said. As the prosecution alleges, this shows that Petkovic was ‘loyal and committed’ to the joint criminal enterprise and that he knew that the arrests and expulsions were a means of its implementation.
The prosecutor then spoke of Petkovic’s responsibility for the conflict that broke out in Mostar, for the expulsions and the terror campaign against civilians, indiscriminate shelling and not allowing humanitarian aid in.
HOW THE ACCUSED CONTRIBUTED TO THE JOINT CRIMINAL ENTERPRISE
Continuing the closing arguments at the trial of the former Herceg Bosna leaders, the prosecution focused on the contributions of the accused to the joint criminal enterprise. According to the prosecution, Prlic controlled all the levers of power in the HVO, Stojic was responsible for HVO prisons and prison camps and Praljak’s ‘only interest was in winning the war’
The crimes in Herceg Bosna were widespread and systemic, prosecutor Kenneth Scott said as he continued his closing arguments at the trial of the former Bosnian Croat leaders. According to the prosecutor, those crimes were not isolated incidents perpetrated by out-of-control people ‘after a bad night’s sleep’. The crimes were systematic and widespread and followed a coherent pattern of behavior from October 1992 to the end of 1993 in the entire territory of Herceg Bosna.
The prosecutor then went on to describe the roles that each of the accused played in the joint criminal enterprise. From the moment he assumed power in August 1992, Jadranko Prlic transformed the HVO of the Croatian Community of Herceg Bosna into a fully operational government that controlled the work of the municipal HVOs and could revoke all their decisions if they didn’t comply with the Herceg Bosna policies. It was not Mate Boban – as the accused contend – but Prlic who exerted control ‘over all the levers of power in the HVO’. Together with the head of the department of defense Bruno Stojic, Prlic ‘controlled, funded, supplied, armed and fed the HVO troops’.
Stojic’s contribution to the joint criminal enterprise lies in the fact that he was the ‘most responsible person’ for the mobilization of Bosnian Croats, an ‘axis’ around whom everything related to the procurement of arms and logistics revolved. Stojic was also ‘responsible’ for prisons and prison camps in the Herceg Bosna territory.
According to the prosecutor, the accused ‘point their fingers at an empty place in the courtroom’ when they try to shift the blame on Mate Boban. Even if Boban had been an ‘important player’, this only means that he was one of the leaders of the same criminal enterprise, the prosecutor remarked, and then went on to quote from the statement of witness Davor Marijan, who said ‘from 1992 on, there are no documents confirming that Boban headed the Herceg Bosna armed forces’. The prosecution contends this shows that Boban transferred those powers on others. Recalling that the Presidency of the Croatian Community of Herceg Bosna didn’t meet between October 1992 and late August 1993, the prosecutor concluded that in that period, Prlic’s government was the ‘most powerful body of Herceg Bosna’.
Speaking of General Slobodan Praljak’s role, prosecutor Douglas Stringer recalled that the objective of the joint criminal enterprise was to create an autonomous entity in BH whose borders were to coincide with those of the Banovina that existed in 1939, dominated by the Croats. As the prosecutor said, Praljak was fully aware of the fact that this vision called for the use of violence. This is illustrated by Praljak’s words at a meeting with Franko Tudjman in Zagreb on 26 September 1992: ‘without expulsions’, Croats would not be in the majority.
Praljak’s special contribution to the joint criminal enterprise is reflected in the fact that he played the role of ‘a liaison’ between the leaders in Croatia and in Herceg Bosna, the prosecutor contended. On 15 January 1993, Praljak personally brought from Zagreb the text of the ultimatum to the BH Army, demanding that they either withdraw or subordinate to the HVO in the three provinces Croats considered as their own, the prosecutor noted. In his evidence in his own defense, Praljak argued that Tudjman and Izetbegovic agreed on the contents of the ultimatum at their talks in Zagreb. However, minutes taken at the meeting showed that there was no such agreement.
The prosecutor went on to describe Praljak’s role in the conflict in Gornji Vakuf, ethnic cleansing and other crimes against civilians in the neighboring villages of Dusa, Hrasnica, Uzricje and Zdrimci in January 1993. The accused ‘turned a blind eye’ to the crimes of the HVO units because he was ‘only interested in winning the war’.
ARCHITECTS OF ‘GREATER CROATIA’
Starting the prosecution’s closing argument at the trial of the former Bosnian Croat leaders, prosecutor Scott identified four key points in the joint criminal enterprise aimed at establishing the Greater Croatia, headed by Croatian president Franjo Tudjman and other ‘architects’. The enterprise was run by the Croatian state leadership and the goal was to capture territory, establish a demographic Croatian majority there and make the territory ‘look, sound and feel Croatian’
Prosecutor Kenneth Scott started the closing arguments at the trial of the former Bosnian Croat leaders with a reminder of the HVO crimes in Stupni Do, Dretelj and Mostar in 1993. These ‘terrible and sad’ events are a result of the joint criminal enterprise aimed at achieving a political and military ‘subjugation and elimination’ of the Muslims and other non-Croats in parts of BH territory that were to be annexed to the Greater Croatia, the prosecutor noted.
The prosecutor identified four key points in the joint criminal enterprise. First, the enterprise was organized ‘from top down’, from the nationalist faction in the HDZ headed by Franjo Tudjman, Gojko Susak and Janko Bobetko. The six accused joined in: Jadranko Prlic, Bruno Stojic, Slobodan Praljak, Milivoj Petkovic, Valentin Coric and Berislav Pusic. All of them were the ‘architects’ of that project, the prosecutor claimed.
The second key point of the joint criminal enterprise was to capture the ‘territory’ that coincided with the borders of the erstwhile Croatian Banovina from 1939. As the prosecutor noted, this was not about implementing an abstract, philosophical idea of Croatdom. Croats ‘wanted their sovereign territory, real estate with borders’ where the demographic majority of Croats had to be ensured at the expense of other ethnicities, Scott emphasized. The final, fourth key element in the joint criminal enterprise was ‘Croatdom’, reflected in the need to make sure that the territory ‘should look, sound and feel Croatian’.
The prosecutor reminded the court about Jadranko Prlic’s words on the eve of the indictment against him and five former Bosnian Croat leaders. As Prlic noted, the plan for Herceg Bosna was adopted, proclaimed and supported in Zagreb. There were crimes, Prlic said, and the military segment of the HVO was responsible for them. At a meeting in June 1998, Prlic said that he only did what Tudjman told him to do. In his evidence in his own defense, Slobodan Praljak argued that he had implemented the policies of the Croatian state. Milivoj Petkovic claimed that he obeyed the orders of the Herceg Bosna civilian authorities – Mate Boban, Jadranko Prlic and Bruno Stojic, who is also on trial in this case.
The prosecutor recalled Tudjman’s territorial aspirations towards BH and the role he played in the establishment of Herceg Bosna as an instrument for the implementation of that plan, and then explained the role Mate Boban played when he first assumed the leading role in the BH HDZ and then in the 30 municipalities Croats considered as theirs. This, the prosecutor claimed, despite the fact that the Croats were in the majority in only 12 of those municipalities. ‘This in itself was an act of persecution’, the prosecutor noted. After that, a documentary of the British TV station Channel 4 about the establishment of Herceg Bosna and its main players was shown in court.
In a very detailed account of events that started with the establishment of the Croatian Community of Herceg Bosna and ended with the outbreak of the conflict between the HVO and the BH Army in the second half of 1992, the prosecutor insisted in particular on the agreement on friendship Izetbegovic and Tudjman signed on 27 July 1992. According to the prosecutor, Tudjman tried to accomplish three goals at that meeting – to legalize the presence of the HV in the BH territory, to secure equality of the HVO in the BH armed forces and to obtain guarantees that Herceg Bosna would be recognized as a separate entity. Izetbegovic agreed instead only to make the HVO part of the armed forces together with the BH Army under a unified command. The prosecutor recalled that Slobodan Praljak – at a meeting with Ratko Mladic on 5 November 2021 – said there was no agreement with Izetbegovic and that the agreement on friendship was just a ‘piece of paper’. A year later, Tudjman confirmed it when he said there was no real agreement between him and Izetbegovic.
According to the prosecution, the failure of that meeting faced Tudjman with a dilemma – to withdraw peacefully from the plan to annex Herceg Bosna to Croatia or to take further steps. Unfortunately, Tudjman opted for the latter and pushed BH into another war. According to the prosecution, the war started with the clashes in Prozor.
PRLIC’S MOTION DISMISSED
The ICTY president declared that he has no jurisdiction and dismissed the motion filed by the defense of the former Herceg Bosna prime minister to appoint a panel of judges to consider if the Trial Chamber in the case against the six former Herceg Bosna leaders is capable of producing a fair judgment
ICTY president Patrick Robinson declared that he has no jurisdiction to rule on the motion filed by the defense of Jadranko Prlic, former Herceg Bosna prime minister. The accused wanted the President to consider if the Trial Chamber in the Prlic case is “functioning properly and is capable of deliberating as a collective body’.
Prlic’s defense counsel Michael Karnavas asked that the motion be considered either by a panel of judges or the Bureau, which consists of the ICTY president, vice-president and the presiding judges of the three main trial chambers. According to Karnavas, there are ‘irreconcilable differences, bordering upon antipathy’ among the judges in the Prlic case, which ‘raises doubts regarding their ability to function as a collective body” when deliberating over evidence and reaching the verdict of guilt or innocence. “A stay of the proceedings should be considered if it is determined that the moral integrity of the proceedings will be undermined”, Karnavas has proposed.
Dismissing the defense motion, President Robinson noted that under the Rules of Procedure and Evidence, he lacks jurisdiction to interfere with the work of the Trial Chamber, which “shall ensure that a trial is fair and expeditious and that proceedings are conducted in accordance with the Rules, with full respect for the rights of the accused and due regard for the protection of victims and witnesses’.
According to the Rules, the president shall ‘preside at all plenary meetings of the Tribunal, coordinate the work of the Chambers and supervise the activities of the Registry, and issue practice directions’ and consult the Bureau ‘on all major questions relating to the functioning of the Tribunal’. In light of all that, the ICTY president considers he lacks jurisdiction to rule on Prlic’s defense motion.
Jadranko Prlic, Bruno Stojic, Slobodan Praljak, Milivoj Petkovic, Valentin Coric and Berislav Pusic are on trial for the crimes against Muslim civilians in Central Bosnia and Western Herzegovina in 1993 and 1994. As alleged in the indictment, the crimes were committed as part of a joint criminal enterprise headed by the Croatian president Franjo Tudjman.
Croats kill at least 80 Bosniaks in the Stupni Do massacre, Bosnian Genocide
http://bosniagenocide.wordpress.com/2011/01/13/croats-kill-at-least-80-bosniaks-in-the-stupni-do-massacre-bosnian-genocide/
The Siege of Mostar in 1993 during the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina
http://bosniagenocide.wordpress.com/2011/01/14/the-siege-of-mostar-in-1993-during-the-war-in-bosnia-and-herzegovina/
Vitez massacres in Central Bosnia claim lives of 172 Bosniaks
http://bosniagenocide.wordpress.com/2011/01/14/vitez-massacres-in-central-bosnia-claim-lives-of-172-bosniaks/
Zenica massacre claims 65 casualties in Croat attack
http://bosniagenocide.wordpress.com/2011/01/14/central-bosnia-lasva-valley-zenica-massacre-claims-65-casualties-in-croat-attack-3/
Ahmici Massacre, Croats Slaughtered 120 Bosniak Civilians
http://bosniagenocide.wordpress.com/2011/01/13/ahmici-massacre-croats-slaughter-120-bosniak-civilians/
Croats kill at least 80 Bosniaks in the Stupni Do massacre, Bosnian Genocide
http://bosniagenocide.wordpress.com/2011/01/13/croats-kill-at-least-80-bosniaks-in-the-stupni-do-massacre-bosnian-genocide/
There are four legally validated genocides that occurred in Bosnia-Herzegovina, other than Srebrenica. The three international judgements confirming Genocide in Bosnia, other than Srebrenica, include: Prosecutor v Nikola Jorgic (Doboj region), Prosecutor v Novislav Djajic [Dzajic] (Foča region), Prosecutor v Djuradj Kuslic [Kusljic] (Kotor Varos) and Prosecutor v Maksim Sokolovic (Kalesija, Zvornik region). All three cases were tried in Germany — at the request of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) — to ease caseload of the ongoing trials at the Hague.
