Two human rights groups on Thursday called on Croatia's President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic to strip six Bosnian Croat wartime commanders of state decorations, on the first anniversary of the Hague tribunal's 2017 ruling to uphold their convictions for war crimes during the 1992-95 Bosnian War.

The six top officials of the wartime self-proclaimed Bosnian Croat statelet of Herzeg-Bosnia (HB) – Jadranko Prlic, Slobodan Praljak, Bruno Stojic, Milivoj Petkovic, Valentin Corici, and Berislav Pusic – were handed lengthy prison sentences in 2013 for leading what the Hague tribunal defined as a joint criminal enterprise to commit ethnic cleansing against Bosniaks in parts of Bosnia and Herzegovina under their control, with the ultimate goal of annexing the territory to neighbouring Croatia.

The final appeal verdict, upholding the original ruling, was delivered in November 2017. Immediately following the court's decision, Slobodan Praljak, a top commander of the statelet's paramilitary forces, the Croat Defence Council (HVO), committed suicide by producing and drinking a vial of poison in the courtroom during live television broadcast.

In the original trial which lasted from 2006 to 2013, Praljak had been sentenced to 20 years in prison. His co-defendants were also all sentenced to jail terms, ranging from 25 years for Prlic to 10 years for Pusic. 

In the 1990s, Praljak and others had been awarded a number of Croatian decorations by Croatia's then president, Franjo Tudjman, and following the Hague court's 2017 ruling opposition parties and NGOs called for these decorations to be stripped by President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic, who came into power in 2015 as the candidate of Tudjman's HDZ party.

In December 2017, Grabar-Kitarovic said she would not move to strip the six former Bosnian Croat leaders of their decorations, saying that not only did they receive the decorations and medals for defending against “Greater Serbian aggression,” but also that this would constitute a precedent as revoking decorations was historically done only upon rulings made by Croatian courts.

Media coverage focused on Praljak's suicide and ignored war crime victims

The two NGOs – the Documenta Centre for Dealing with the Past, and the Youth Initiative for Human Rights – held a news conference on Thursday to present their report which analysed the way Croatian media outlets covered the verdict, as well as reactions made by politicians and state institutions in the country.

The head of Documenta, Vesna Terselic, said that the Croatian media, in their coverage of the war crimes case, paid little attention to victims and survivors, and were insufficiently objective in reporting on the facts of the case, as well as on the evidence on which the verdict was based, or the responsibility of the six defendants.

The NGOs said the media coverage focused only on the sentencing, Croatia’s involvement in the war in Bosnia, and the suicide of Slobodan Praljak, instead of on victims of war crimes.

In the weeks after the verdict, the Croatian media put the spotlight on Praljak and the circumstances of his suicide – how he came into possession of the poison while being in detention at the Hague, his suicide notes, the details of sending his body back to Croatia, or how to contest parts of the verdict, the NGOs said.

Follow N1 via mobile apps for Android | iPhone/iPad | Windows| and social media on Twitter | Facebook.