Five military and political leaders are expected to appear at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) on 5 April. Indicted on 31 March, the five are accused of war crimes committed against Muslims during the Bosnian war. Two of them, General Milijov Petkovic and retired general Slobodan Praljak, were former commanders of the Croat army in Bosnia-Herzegovina (HVO) during the war. General Milijov was immediately dismissed from his post as chief inspector of the Croat army after news of the charges became public. Suspect number three is former commander-in-chief of the military police of Bosnian Croats Valentin Coric, who holds dual Croatian and Bosnian nationality. The remaining two to face war crimes are Jadranko Prlic and Bruno Stojic, former Prime Minister and Defence Minister of the self-proclaimed Republic of Herceg-Bosna. The mini-republic was short-lived, and was dissolved just before the Dayton Accord in 1995. Its territory was incorporated into the Croatian-Muslim federation to form post-war Bosnia along with the Republika Sprska. Despite being allied against Bosnian Serbs, Bosnian Croats and Muslims fought bitterly for eleven months in 1993-1994.
The five defendants say that they will definitely be appearing at The Hague. This could be a sign of the Croatian government\'s willingness to step up its cooperation with the ICTY. Helping the tribunal is key to Croatia\'s hopes of being accepted as a candidate for integration into the European Union later this year. The arrests come less than a year after two other Croatian generals - Ivan Cermak and Mladen Markac - were transferred to The Hague to face charges of war crimes against Croatian Serbs during the 1991-1995 conflict. The men were indicted for their role in the 1995 military operation «Storm», which aimed to regain control of the Knin region in Krajina, southern Croatia. Cermak was the administrator of Knin at the time, and Markac led special police units. Their indictment is the first to openly refer to the criminal responsibility in ethnic cleansing of the former Croatian President Franjo Tudjman, who died in 1999. Both defendants pleaded not guilty on 12 March.