Welcome home Dario Kordic flag
6 June 2014
(Photo: Marija Tomislava)

Former vice president and a member of the Presidency of the Croatian Community of Herceg-Bosna, and later Croatian Republic of Herceg-Bosna, and at one time the president of the Croatian Democratic Union of Bosnia and Herzegovina (HDZBiH), Dario Kordic, landed at Zagreb, Croatia, airport after serving 16.6 years of the 25-year prison sentence imposed by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) for 1993 war crimes committed in Central Bosnia, Lasva Valley, against Muslim civilians.

Several hundred people gathered at the airport to welcome back home from prison the man they consider a hero, not a war criminal. Kordic’s ICTY sentence was not the one of a war criminal who committed crimes but that of a politician who was at the time of those crimes in a high position of Herceg-Bosna political leadership and responsibilities. Indeed, among the welcoming crowds were many most esteemed historians, public personalities who work tirelessly at justice for victims as well as some highly positioned political officials at the time of the 1990’s war. These include: dr Zvonimir Separovic, dr Slobodan Lang, dr Josip Pecaric, dr Zdravko Tomac, dr Ivic Pasalic, dr Ante Kovacevic, dr Josip Jurcevic – Bishop Vlado Kosic from Sisak was there to lead a prayer.

After tearfully embracing his wife and children, Kordic turned to the masses at the Zagreb airport with an emotional speech in which he thanked God, the Catholic faith and the whole of the Croatian nation.

Kordic is one member of the group of Bosnian Croats from central Bosnia, who voluntarily surrendered to the ICTY in The Hague in 1997 after U.S. authorities and the World Bank put Croatia’s Franjo Tudjman and his government under mounting economic pressure to have Kordic and other Bosnian Croats arrested. Kordic said that he gladly welcomed the opportunity to clear his name.

Kordic was sentenced for war crimes committed in Ahmici against Bosnian Muslims, for the perpetration of which he actually is not responsible. And, it’s necessary to point out here that on the same day the Ahmici crimes occurred, crimes perpetrated by the Muslims/ BH Army against Croats occurred in the village of Trusine where the entire Croatian village population was murdered and no one to this day has been made accountable for this, just as no one has been made accountable for similar war crimes in Doljani, Grabovica, Uzdol, Jurici, Bugojno … where, even today, the Croats are constantly threatened with death.

After the war ended in 1995 and the signing of the Dayton Agreement for Bosnia and Herzegovina the failed Bosniak scenario to create an ethnically pure Muslim/Bosniak region within Bosnia and Herzegovina moved into the corridors of the ICTY. Bosnian Croats Dario Kordic and Tihomir Blaskic found themselves in the Hague where the prosecution’s politically charged and unfounded plan was to show that Croatia’s president Franjo Tudjman started ethnic cleansing against Muslims in Lasva Valley in order to create a Greater Croatia. Dario Kordic’s case was allocated to the British prosecutor Geoffrey Nice and the judge was Judge Richard May, also British; the witnesses for the prosecution were officers of a British battalion, whose testimonies omitted to address all BH Army (Muslim) offensive operations, all their crimes against Croats, and especially all the horrific crimes of the Mujahedeen units of the BH Army.

Looking down upon history we find that the British forces were instrumental in turning the hundreds of thousands of Croat refugees in May of 1945, in Bleiburg, Austria, back to communist Yugoslavia, knowing they would be massacred. The fact that these people sought the promised refuge/asylum in the West at the time made no difference. And in the ICTY case against Kordic the British again play an important role! One wonders why Britain, post- New York “9/11” terrorist attack, joins the war against terror when at about the same time the Kordic case was at the Hague, here in the corridors of ICTY members of it’s judicial echelons saw to the protection of Bosnian Muslims and their Mujahedeen terrorist units.

“In Broad Daylight” – documentary on Muslim/Bosniak crimes against Croats in Bosnia and Herzegovina (partially in English):

One cannot change the ICTY’s judgment against Dario Kordic. He had pleaded innocent to the charges of war crimes and lost. He has served his time in prison and paid the dues to society imposed upon him by the court even if those dues are seen as having been based on highly questionable foundations. But one can change one thing in relation to Dario Kordic’s war crimes conviction: one can lobby the government corridors and insist on investigations into the ICTY judgment in order to demonstrate upon which falsification and political maneuvering it did arise! This is particularly important given that the “Herceg-Bosna 6 Croats” (Jadranko Prlic, Milivoj Petkovic, Bruno Stojic, Slobodan Praljak, Berislav Pusic, Valentin Coric) convicted in 2013 by the ICTY Trial Chamber for similar crimes and similar political constructs in 2013 still await Appeal.

One truth is among us: Dario Kordic has returned home on conditional release from prison for war crimes after serving two-thirds of his prison sentence. The other truth is yet to arrive: What political games saw him behind bars while the Bosnian Muslims/Bosniaks involved in a similar role as Kordic – political responsibility – are walking the streets freely!

In the meantime here are some photographs from Dario Kordic’s arrival at Zagreb airport, Croatia, on Friday 6 June 2014 from which place he will soon head to his hometown of Busovaca, Central Bosnia and Herzegovina. (Please click on photos to enlarge). Ina Vukic, Prof. (Zgb); B.A., M.A.Ps. (Syd)

Waiting for Dario Kordic at Zagreb Airport
6 June 2014 (Photo: Marija Tomislava)

Waiting for Dario Kordic at Zagreb Airport
6 June 2014 (Photo: Marija Tomislava)

Dario Kordic kneels to Croatian ground
Zagreb 6 June 2014
(Photo: PIXSELL)

Dario Kordic kisses Croatian ground
6 June 2014
(Photo: PIXSELL)

Dario Kordic reunited with family
Tears of joy overwhelm
(Photo: Marija Tomislava)

Dario Kordic arrives in Zagreb 6 June 2014
First came tears of joy and a prayer followed
(Photo: Marija Tomislava)

Dr Slobodan Lang at Zagreb Airport
6 June 2014 (Photo: Marija Tomislava)

Dario Kordic in Zagreb 6 June 2014
(Photo: Marija Tomislava)

Dario Kordic welcomed in Zagreb
6 June 2014
(Photo: Ranko Suvar/CROPIX)

Dario Kordic with dr Josip Pecaric,
dr Zvonimir Separovic and Bishop Vlado Kosic
Zagreb Airport 6 June 2014
(Photo: Marija Tomislava)

Dario Kordic kisses Bishop Vlado Kosic’s hand
Zagreb Airport 6 June 2014
(Photo: Ranko Suvar/CROPIX)

A T-shirt worn by a well-wisher at
Dario Kordic’s arrival in Zagreb
6 June 2014, writing on T-shirt
“Often, Judas judge the righteous”
(Photo: Marija Tomislava)