Forgotten Victims: Bosnian Croat Fighters Never Tried for Elderly Civilians’ Murders

He recalled how the unknown soldier then told his father: "Turn around and look at your house one last time."

Alija Konjhodzic never saw his father again.

After the arrest, he went to the military police station to try to find out why his father had been taken.

"They said they had found weapons at his place. My father did have weapons, but it was hunting weapons and he had all the permits," he said.

Later that day he went to see the police again, but his father was not on the list of people who had been detained.

Ten days after his arrest, the body of Zaim Konjhodzic was brought to Ljubuski. According to Alija Konjhodzic, his father's former colleague at the Mostar police informed him that he had been killed, and organised the transportation of his remains.

"We could not bury him according to the religious rites as his body had already started decomposing. I got some sort of unverified information that they killed him at Heliodrom [HVO-run detention facility in Mostar] and left his body on Brkanovo Hill, and that somebody allegedly reported that to the civilian police," he said.

Detainees beaten, abused and killed

The funeral of Zaim Konjhodzic. Photo: Stefica Galic.

The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in The Hague convicted six military and political officials of a self-proclaimed, Bosnian Croat-led wartime statelet called the Croatian Republic of Herzeg-Bosnia, which had its headquarters in Mostar.

They were found guilty of a series of wartime crimes against Bosniaks, including offences against detainees at the Heliodrom facility. Among the six Herzeg-Bosnia officials who were convicted was Slobodan Praljak, the chief of the HVO's main headquarters, who...