An association gathering Bosnian Croat intellectuals and politicians condemned the statement by war crime convict, former Bosnian Croat military leader Dario Kordic, who said he would “do it all over again." A day after the video with Kordic's statement leaked, the association - formally called the Croat National Council in Bosnia and Herzegovina called on the Croat political leadership in BiH to distance from Kordic and his statements.

The Council said in a press release they were still the only association of the Croats in BiH apologising for the “damage done to the public space as a result of statements like the one of Kordic.”

“We call for the reaction of the competent authorities and for an immediate distancing and condemnation by the political and religious leadership that represents citizens of the Croat ethnicity in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Catholics,” said the Council, which gathers membership of the Croat religious, media, cultural and academic elites oriented towards the European path of Bosnia and Herzegovina based on respect for Bosnian sovereignty and independence.

Kordic served as commander-in-chief of the Bosnian Croat army HVO during the 1992-95 Bosnian War and in the late 1990s was who put on trial at the Hague war crimes tribunal (ICTY) for his role in the 1993 Ahmici massacre in central Bosnia, where HVO soldiers killed over a hundred Muslim Bosniak civilians during the Bosniak-Croat conflict which was part of the larger Bosnian War.

Hague convict says ‘it was worth it’ and he would ‘do it all over again’

In 2001, Kordic was sentenced to 25 years in prison, and was later released in 2014 after serving two thirds of his sentence, having spent some 17 years in detention.

In a leaked video, whose timing is not confirmed but is assumed to have been recorded in August 2022, Kordic retells a story of when he was asked “if it was worth the prison and the war?”.

“I replied, I would do it all over again. I wouldn't change a second of it. Every second was worth it,” he said and his words were welcomed by a strong applause of the group.