Unbelievable development at the International Criminal Tribunal

Truffle Hunt, Eckhartz Press, 2015

Last week I posted a piece about how the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia at The Hague was closing down after 25 years because all the cases have been tried.  All that was left to do was confirm the sentences for a handful of war criminals from the 1990s.  If you want to read that post, you can do so here. 

Yesterday the court was confirming the sentence for several defendants when one, Slobodan Praljak, produced a tiny cup, proclaimed his innocence, and drank what he said was poison.  Praljak died shortly thereafter in a Dutch hospital.

As bizarre and dramatic as this scene was, what Praljak was convicted of needs to be understood.  Praljak was a high ranking official in the Croatian Armed Forces.  The crimes he was convicted of happened in Bosnia during the Croat-Bosniak War, part of the larger Bosnian War.  Praljak was convicted of crimes against humanity, including murder, rape, and religious and racial persecution during a war where ethnic cleansing was common.

Most people who know about this war know about war crimes committed on the Serbian side.  And, yes, Serbs were guilty of crimes against humanity during the war in the Balkans.  One of the characters in my book, Truffle Hunt, was, in fact, a Serb war criminal.  Many Serb military officers and political officials were tried, convicted and served prison time for their crimes in the 1990s.

But, what most people don't understand is that there were crimes against humanity perpetrated on all sides of this three-sided conflict.  I've taken some heat for making my book make it appear that Serbians were solely responsible for the war.  And, of course, if you feel this way, you're entitled to your opinion, but in a later post I will write about how I tried to show all sides of the argument.

 SPOILER ALERT

For now, let's look at how Praljak died.  Taking poison in front the International Criminal Tribunal is a spectacular and attention-grabbing way to go out.  But, lawyers for the ICT say it would be rather easy to smuggle in poison or other contraband.  They say that you go through and metal detector upon entering The Hague (where the ITC takes place) and your cell phone is confiscated, but drugs would easily be allowed through.

And finally, I can't conclude this piece without pointing out that the villain in Truffle Hunt, Boris, meets his demise in an eerily similar fashion.  While he didn't drink poison in front of the court (which might have been even more dramatic), he pathetically died in his cell at The Hague by taking poison while awaiting sentencing.

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