Croatian Defence Council

The Bosnian state court told BIRN on Thursday that it had received a death certificate for Ivica Markovic, who passed away at the beginning of July.

"As it has been determined during the criminal proceedings that the defendant died, the court has made a decision to terminate the proceedings against defendant Ivica Markovic," the court said.

Lawmakers in the Federation entity on Thursday night adopted new law on war veterans - one of the demands raised by ex-soldiers from the Bosnian war who staged a series of protests in 2017 and 2018.

In closing arguments at the Bosnian state court in Sarajevo on Tuesday, the prosecution argued that former Bosnian Army battalion commander Enver Buza should be found guilty and given the harshest possible penalty.

Robert Kovacic, a former member of the Croatian Defence Council wanted for war crimes, was arrested last month in the United States on a warrant issued by Bosnia and Herzegovina, and is now awaiting an extradition hearing in a US court in July.

Kovacic, now 66, was arrested in Roanoke, Virginia on May 16. He is currently in custody in the US and his extradition is pending.

The appeals chamber of the Bosnian state court on Friday raised former Croatian Defence Council brigade commander Mensur Djakic's sentence from two to eight years in prison.

Representatives of former wartime prisoners in the southern town of Stolac said that the anniversary march on Thursday organised by Bosnia and Herzegovina's main Croat party, the Croatian Democratic Union, sent a "dangerous message".

From January to May this year, the Bosnian state prosecution filed just four indictments for war crimes, two fewer than in the same period in 2018.

The apparent slowdown has sparked concerns that this may cause further delays in attempts to deal with the country's enormous backlog of war crimes cases.

Prosecutor Marijana Cobovic told the Bosnian state court at the start of the trial on Wednesday that the 14 defendants were responsible for the murders, detentions, rape, torture and mistreatment of the Serb population in Konjic, as well as burning their property and the local Orthodox church.

Zagreb County Court on Tuesday handed down a first-instance verdict convicting former Bosnian Serb Army officer Dane Lukajic of physically abusing prisoners at the Manjaca camp during wartime, and sentenced him to six years in prison, local media reported.

The verdict was made public on Thursday after the prosecution and defence issued their closing statements on Monday.

The Constitutional Court on Tuesday rejected Nihad Bojadzic's appeal against verdicts under which he was sentenced to a total of 15 years in prison for crimes committed in 1993 during the war in Jablanica and in the village of Trusina, near Konjic.

The Constitutional Court described Bojadzic's appeal as "unfounded".