In soon to be issued ICTY verdicts, former Croatian leadership could be listed as part of a joint criminal enterprise during the 1990s war in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Bosniak member of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) Bakir Izetbegović said on Wednesday that the crimes committed by Islamic mujahideen warriors, who were fighting on the Bosniak side during the 1990s war in BiH, were individual, as opposed to the “joint criminal enterprise” which “was literally led by then Croatia’s President Franjo Tuđman.” Izetbegović was commenting on recent statements by Miroslav Tuđman, a Croatian intelligence official, politician and Franjo Tuđman’s son, who said that the roots of today’s terrorism on the Europe’s soil could be found in the 1990s Bosnia and Herzegovina, reports Večernji List on August 31, 2017.
“Why did we not refuse the mujahidin services? When you are attacked by a neighbour and there is an embargo on purchasing weapons, you will not refuse anyone who wants to fight with a rifle on your side. We did not think they would commit crimes,” Izetbegović said in an interview for N1 television.
Asked if his father, Alija Izetbegović, the Bosniak leader at the time, had control over the mujahidin, Bakir Izetbegović said that in the beginning there was no control, denying that the mujahideen were directly commanded by Alija Izetbegović. “They were not expelled from BiH, but Alija Izetbegović was not happy they were present,” he added and clarified that the mujahidin crimes were three times less numerous than those committed by Bosnian Croat fighters.
“We are awaiting the verdicts from the war crimes tribunal in The Hague (ICTY) for the joint criminal enterprise. Franjo Tudjman will be mentioned, but his son is also involved because Tuđman the younger was the head of the intelligence services at that time, so I think he is trying to draw attention away from the topics which do not suit him and Croatia,” said Izetbegović.
It is expected that second-instance verdicts will be issued in November for six Bosnian Croat officials, who were sentenced in 2013 in the first instance for the alleged joint criminal enterprise for war crimes against Bosniaks and an attempt to merge one part of BiH to Croatia, which they allegedly did prompted by then Croatian leadership.
The son of the first Croatian president, Miroslav Tudjman, said for the latest issue of the Globus weekly that the beginnings of today’s Islamic terrorism in Europe could be found in Bosnia during the 1990s war. “Almost fifty ritual beheadings were committed. The BiH Army brigades bearing the name ‘Muslim’ had Arabic marks, they went to the battles under the Allahu Akbar slogan. The fact is that, starting from the early 1990s, even before the war broke out, the mujahedin came to BiH, at the invitation of Alija Izetbegović himself,” said Miroslav Tuđman.
The ICTY prosecution announced in October 2003, a day after the death of Alija Izetbegović, that it was conducting an investigation into war crimes against him.
Translated from Večernji List.
