Prlic Admits War Crimes, Seeks Early Release From Hague

Jadranko Prlic, the former prime minister of the self-styled Croatian Republic of Herceg-Bosna (HRHB), has again asked the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals in The Hague for early release, this time explicitly admitting the crimes and the personal responsibility for which he was convicted. The 2017 ruling that sent him to prison for 25 years rests on the same court that also handles the cases of convicts on the Serbian side, so any decision on his early release will shape how evenly Hague justice is seen to apply to all sides in the war, at least in the eyes of the region.

The Hague tribunal convicted Prlic in November 2017, along with five other senior HRHB officials, over crimes committed during the conflict between Croats and Bosniaks in Bosnia and Herzegovina between 1992 and 1994. Former HRHB defense minister Bruno Stojic, the chief of the Croatian Defense Council’s Main Staff Slobodan Praljak, and deputy HVO commander Milivoj Petkovic each received 20 years in prison; former HVO military police commander Valentin Coric got 16 years, and Berislav Pusic, who chaired the HRHB’s prisoner exchange commission, got 10 years. Praljak drank poison in the courtroom that day, upon hearing the verdict, and died.

What’s new in this request

Prlic has already served part of his sentence, reaching the two-thirds threshold in April 2024, and has since filed several requests for early release, all rejected so far by the Mechanism. What sets the latest filing apart, according to his lawyer Steven W. Baker, is that for the first time Prlic has clearly accepted the final verdict and his personal responsibility, rather than disputing the scale of the established crimes.

At Mr. Prlic’s explicit request, it is stated here that he accepts the final judgment in his case. He accepts that during the armed conflict between Croats and Muslims in Bosnia and Herzegovina from 1992 to 1994, grave crimes were committed, as established by the judgments. He accepts his personal responsibility for the crimes for which he was convicted. He deeply regrets his personal role in the commission of those crimes, whether through his acts or omissions. He expresses sincere remorse and extends his deep condolences to the victims of Muslim and Bosniak nationality and their families for the lives lost, as well as for the physical and psychological suffering they endured.

Those are the words with which Steven W. Baker, Prlic’s defense counsel, opened the submission to the Mechanism, according to Bosnian media. The filing is backed by a personal statement from Prlic himself, in which he says that his process of self-examination over the crimes did not stop after his last request but continued with the same intensity, partly encouraged by advice from Mechanism President Judge Graciela Gatti Santana to keep cooperating with prison authorities on his rehabilitation.

Prlic adds that the road from denial to full acceptance of responsibility was long and did not happen overnight, and he stresses that his critical self-examination will continue for the rest of his life. In the part addressing the victims directly, his words were harshest toward himself and toward the idea that convicted war criminals can be presented as heroes.

Crimes are not committed by peoples, but by individuals. Convicted war criminals must not be proclaimed heroes, because that directly and deeply insults the victims.

With those words, according to the submission relayed to the Mechanism, Prlic said that this assessment applies equally to all sides in the war, without exception.

What it means for the region

The filing further states that, if released early, Prlic plans to live with his wife in Zagreb, where his daughters and their families already reside, and that he would support himself on his pension. In the same document, Prlic said he regards Bosnia and Herzegovina as his homeland, for which he wants full European Union membership, and that trust between the peoples in the region can only be rebuilt on a foundation of truth and justice, not by staying silent.

For Serbia and the rest of the region, the submission itself carries as much weight as the outcome of the request, since Hague and post-Hague justice remains the reference point whenever the question arises of whether convicts on different sides are treated by the same standard. The Mechanism, which continues the work of the Hague tribunal and also handles the cases of convicts on the Serbian side, has not publicly indicated when it will rule on Prlic’s new request for early release, and past rulings on similar requests have in practice taken several months.