Croatian Defence Council

The Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals in The Hague on Tuesday turned down a request for early release from Jadranko Prlic, wartime prime minister of the unrecognised Croat-led Herzeg-Bosnia statelet.

The detainees were tied together with wire and made to stand in a line, and then their captors started to execute them with shots in the back.

The Bosnian state court told BIRN that Marinko Sunjic, who was accused of detaining, persecuting and committing grave abuses against Bosniak civilian prisoners in Mostar in 1992-93, has died and the proceedings against him have been discontinued.

As part of an initiative called "Unmarked Suffering Sites", a group of peace activists in July put up nine more signs at new locations where they say war crimes occurred, either through capture, physical and mental violence or forced labour.

Former prisoners will lay flowers at a ceremony on Sunday to commemorate the suffering of Bosniak civilians held by Bosnian Croat forces at the Kostana Hospital in Stolac in 1993, an event organised by the Association of Camp Prisoners of Stolac.

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.

A spokesperson for Angela Merkel said on Wednesday that the German Chancellor was not familiar with the nationalist song that was performed at the Croatian Democratic Union rally that she attended on Saturday, and was not informed about the content of the event's musical programme in advance.

The Bosnian state court. Photo: BIRN.

The first prosecution witness told the Bosnian state court on the opening day of the trial of eight former Bosnian Army soldiers on Friday that he saw the corpses of the victims at a secondary school gym in Krizancevo Selo, near Vitez, on December 22, 1993.

The verdict acquitting former Croatian Defence Council commander Mile Puljic, who was cleared of crimes against prisoners in Mostar in 1993 and 1994, was quashed and a retrial ordered.