Croatian Defence Council

The question of rehabilitation and reintegration of war criminals has not attracted much attention either in the countries of the former Yugoslavia or internationally. This is somewhat odd considering that 59 of 91 individuals sentenced by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, ICTY have already been released from prison after serving sentences for grave crimes.

The Association of Victims and Witnesses of Genocide on Monday asked the president of the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals, Graciela Gatti Santana, to review the 2014 early release of convicted Bosnian Croat war criminal Dario Kordic.

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.

At first sight, the village of Ahmici, near Vitez in the Lasva Valley in central Bosnia, doesn't show any signs that a terrible crime was committed here 30 years ago.

The Bosnian Defence Ministry told BIRN that it is planning to invest 540,000 Bosnian marks, some 270,000 euros, over the next three years on rebuilding part of the former Heliodrom detention camp in Mostar as the Military Museum of the 1st Infantry Regiment of the Armed Forces of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

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.

Left: Graphic designed by Trio design studio marking the tenth anniversary of the 1984 Sarajevo Winter Olympics. Right: Poster designed by Asim Djelilovic depicting a sniper saying "Perfect", inspired by the shooting of two female peace demonstrators in Sarajevo in 1992.

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.