Prlić and others: Second-instance verdict for joint criminal enterprise in November 2017

The second-instance verdict for six accused members of the military-political leadership of HVO and the so-called Herceg-Bosna Jadranko Prlić, Slobodan Praljak, Bruno Stojić, Milivoj Petković, Valentin Ćorić and Berislav Pušić could be rendered in November 2017, according to unofficial information from the Hague Tribunal, writes the BiH news agency Patria.

We remind you that the Hague Tribunal, in May 2013, provisionally sentenced the six Bosnian-Herzegovina Croats to sentences ranging from 10 to 25 years in prison for crimes against Bosniaks during the war in BiH, conceived within a joint criminal enterprise.

The former Prime Minister of Herceg-Bosna, Jadranko Prlić, was provisionally sentenced to 25 years in prison, former Minister of Defence Bruno Stojić and former Chiefs of the Main Staff of HVO Slobodan Praljak and Milivoj Petković to 20 years each, former commander of military police Valentin Ćorić to 16, and head of the POW Exchange Office Berislav Pušić to 10 years in prison.

The Trial Chamber, by a majority of votes, with the dissenting opinion of Presiding Judge Jean Claude Antonetti, concluded that the conflict between HVO and the Army of BiH in 1993-94 was an international conflict and that most of the crimes against the Bosniak population of Herceg-Bosna for which the accused were charged were committed within a joint criminal enterprise in which part of the political and military leadership of the Republic of Croatia participated, including President Franjo Tuđman.

The goal of this joint criminal enterprise, according to the conclusions of the verdict, was to establish a Croatian entity within the borders of Banovina Croatia from 1939 and its annexation to Croatia in order to re-establish the unification of the Croatian people in the event of the collapse of BiH, or for it to become an independent state within BiH closely linked to Croatia.