The Appeals Chamber has scheduled the pronouncement of its judgement in the Prlić et al. case — the Tribunal’s final and most voluminous appeal case — for Wednesday, 29 November 2017 at 10:00 a.m. in Courtroom I.
Jadranko Prlić, Bruno Stojić, Slobodan Praljak, Milivoj Petković, Valentin Ćorić, and Berislav Pušić were convicted by Trial Chamber III of crimes against humanity, violations of the laws or customs of war, and grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions, with respect to events occurring between 1992 and 1994 in eight municipalities and five detention camps in the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The Trial Chamber concluded that, from January 1993, all six accused were participants in a joint criminal enterprise aimed at creating a Croatian entity in Bosnia and Herzegovina that would facilitate the reunification of the Croatian people, through ethnic cleansing of the Muslim population. In its judgement rendered on 29 May 2013, Trial Chamber III sentenced Prlić to 25 years’ imprisonment, Stojić, Praljak, and Petković to 20 years’ imprisonment each, Ćorić to 16 years’ imprisonment, and Pušić to 10 years’ imprisonment.
All six accused as well as the Prosecution lodged appeals against the Trial Judgement. Together the parties raised approximately 150 grounds of appeal and filed more than 12,000 pages of appellate submissions. The briefing in the case was completed on 29 May 2015, and the Appeal Hearing took place between 20 and 28 March 2017.
Since its establishment, the Tribunal has indicted 161 persons for serious violations of humanitarian law committed on the territory of the former Yugoslavia between 1991 and 2001. Proceedings against 154 persons have already been concluded. In addition to the delivery of the Prlić et al. judgement, the judgement in the trial case of Prosecutor v. Ratko Mladić will also be delivered by the end of November 2017, ahead of the Tribunal’s closure on 31 December 2017.
