Politicians in Bosnia’s Federation ‘Glorified’ War Criminals, Victims Claim

Two war victims' associations in Bosnia and Herzegovina on Thursday urged the prime minister of the Croat- and Bosniak-dominated Federation entity, Nermin Niksic, to condemn statements made by the Federation's president Lidija Bradara and minister of culture and sport, Sanja Vlaisavljevic, claiming that they expressed support for convicted war criminals.

"Following the shameful statement made by the president of the FBiH [Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina], in which she publicly denied the judgments of the ICTY [International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia] and glorified a convicted war criminal, today your minister Sanja Vlaisavljevic publicly supported and glorified convicted war criminals, effectively denying the [court's] judgments and endorsing the stance of the president of FBiH," said a letter sent to Niksic by the Association of Victims and Witnesses of Genocide and the Association of Victims of April 16th Ahmici.

Vlaisavljevic told N1 TV in Sarajevo on Wednesday that war criminals should be considered rehabilitated after serving their prison sentences.

She was referring to Dario Kordic, a wartime Croatian Defence Council commander who was convicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in The Hague of planning and instigating killings in the village of Ahmici and neighbouring hamlets and ethnically cleansing the area.

Kordic was released in 2014 after serving two-thirds of his 25-year sentence.

Vlaisavljevic, a representative of the largest Croat party in the country, the Croatian Democratic Union, HDZ, also praised a statement made by Federation president Bradara in March this year, when she said in a reference to Kordic that "a convicted person who has served their sentence...