HUNDREDS of people, including two government ministers, attended a commemoration ceremony to honour a Croatian general who died after apparently taking poison at a UN tribunal that confirmed his war crimes conviction.
Bused in from other Croatian towns and from Bosnia, admirers of Slobodan Praljak filled the main concert hall in the capital Zagreb.
The gathering, organised by a Croatian generals’ association, displayed the resurging nationalism in the EU’s newest member state.
Miroslav Tudjman, the son of Croatia’s late president Franjo Tudjman, denounced the tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands. Tudjman described Praljak as a “big man no one can match”.
“Slobodan Praljak wouldn’t live as a war criminal for a minute because he wasn’t one,” Tudjman told a clapping crowd. “His conviction is an insult for justice.”
Praljak gulped what he said was poison after judges at the Yugoslav war crimes court confirmed his 20-year sentence in an appeals hearing last month. Despite medical attention, he died soon after.
Many in Croatia consider Praljak a hero despite his conviction for war crimes, including murder, persecution and inhumane treatment, against Muslims in Bosnia during the 1992-95 war.
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