Miroslav Bralo was a member of "Jokers", a Military Police unit of the Croatian Defence Council (HVO), which operated primarily in the Lasva Valley region in central Bosnia during 1993. He was sentenced to 20 years in prison for war crimes committed in Ahmici in which 116 Bosniak civilians were brutally murdered.
According to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, he was convicted of Murder; persecutions on political, racial and religious grounds; rape; torture; inhumane treatment (grave breaches of the Geneva conventions of 1949, violations of the laws or customs of war, crimes against humanity).
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Miroslav Bralo was convicted of the murder of Mirnesa Salkic, the killing of an unidentified adult male, and assistance in the killing of 14 Bosnian Muslim civilians—all members of the Salkic and the Mehmet Ceremic families—nine of whom were children. He was also convicted of the murder of three captured Muslim men. He brutally raped and tortured a Bosnian Muslim woman – Witness “A” – and imprisoned her for approximately two months to be further violated at the whim of her captors.
He was involved in the unlawful confinement and inhuman treatment of Bosnian Muslim civilians, who were used as labourers in the digging of trenches around the village of Kratine and used as “human shields” to protect the HVO forces from sniper-fire. He set fire to numerous houses, setting and detonating explosives that destroyed the lower mosque in Ahmici in the Lasva River Valley region in central Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Below is his entire admission of guilt before the Court:
“My name is Miroslav Bralo. I wish to make a personal apology to each one of my victims who I made suffer, and to each member of every one of the families affected by my actions. I wish to say that I am truly sorry for their suffering and the suffering of their loved ones. What I said in court last time I really meant: I am guilty, and I deeply regret it.
My apology should go further. It should be bigger than a globe. It should include my apology to all the victims and their families; all those who had to pass through the horrific events that took place- those known and those still unknown. I also want to apologize to the many people who are still living in fear and despair as refugees all around the world.
The Factual Basis to my plea is agreed. It is true. One of the gravest counts is the first one, which talks of Persecutions as a Crime against Humanity. This means something particular to me. As a human being these are my crimes alone, committed against people whose voice I silenced in the massacre at Ahmici. I would like to apologize in the name of those who committed horrific crimes and are not alive any more.
And to all those who had to experience pain and suffering due to war and inhumane behavior in Ahmici. These were acts which I always knew to be wrong, which anyone would know to be wrong, and for which there really can be no excuse at all.
I know I acted badly, and compounded this later by my words. Our wrongs were so terrible- I include others here- that we even clung to them, and tried to justify them. I tried to be proud of my actions and to think they were the actions of a successful soldier. Today I am ashamed of all of that, ashamed of my conduct and ashamed of how I behaved.
No, these were not the actions of the soldier I once wanted to be. I was present when women and children were gunned down in front of me, and at that moment the good soldier in me was gone, silent.
I was sometimes brave during that time, but I was not brave enough to recognize what I had become, I was not brave enough to speak out for people whose lives should have been saved. At that time that would have been a heroic act.
It has taken me years to understand and acknowledge my full responsibility for each of my own actions. Now, reasoning about my own conduct, I feel enormously sorry and can do nothing but pray that never ever happens again in this world.
The Tribunal has had to deal with a lot of lies. I do believe that the only way forward is for the truth to be told and for the denial to stop. I don’t think I lied, but I was one of the biggest deniers- particularly to myself.
But there must be an end to the cover up of crimes. Families should grieve knowing the truth. I know what it is to grieve for the one whom you love deeply. I truly hope all sides will cooperate in search for the truth and by doing so they will shorten the agony of many families.
I would have said let people take their own course, but I do not believe it. I would say that I encourage anyone who can do so to come forward and talk to their neighbours, to talk to the court and begin to make their peace. When one says the truth and admits the truth- both the neighbour and the court will believe him or her.
At the Tribunal, from last November, I knew straight away that the original indictment did not tell it all. I wanted to offer up the truth about my own crimes, even though I knew that the worst were known only by me. This, and more, is what I owe.”
One of the HVO commanders, Dario Kordic, was sentenced to 25 years in prison. Zoran, Mirjan and Vlatko Kupreskic were sentenced from six to ten years in prison for their participation in the crime but were acquitted by a new verdict in 2001.
Kordic, who was serving a 25-year sentence in an Austrian prison for crimes in central Bosnia, including crimes in Ahmici, was released after serving two-thirds of his sentence.
The Hague Court also sentenced Miroslav Cicak Bralo, a former member of the HVO special unit “Jokers”, to 20 years in prison.
Pasko Ljubicic was sentenced to eight years in prison, and after serving two-thirds of the sentence he was released.
Tihomir Blaskic was sentenced to nine years in prison and was released after serving eight years and four months.
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