HVO

Commemorations will be held on Saturday to mark the anniversaries of wartime killings on April 16, 1993 in the villages of Ahmici, near Vitez, and Trusina, near Konjic.

"We had lunch together on May 8, 1993. In the evening, he went on duty, to replace a schoolmate of his, and he stayed there until May 9. That guy, Nedim, returned home and my Fedja stayed [at the Fourth Corps' command HQ]," his mother Jadranka Huskovic recalled of her last meeting with her son.

Croatian President Zoran Milanovic on Tuesday defended his decision to receive in his office former Croatian Defence Council, HVO officers, including Tihomir Blaskic, who served a prison sentence for his role in crimes committed during the Bosnian war after being convicted by the UN court in The Hague.

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.

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.

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.

Islamovic has been found guilty of committing crimes against Serbs in Bosanski Brod in 1992.