The Embassy of the United States of America in Bosnia and Herzegovina condemned the statement of the convicted war criminal Dario Kordić, from the recently published video that contains heinous messages regarding the crimes for which he was convicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), and in which he did not show any signs of remorse.
“We strongly condemn the terrible statement of convicted war criminal Dario Kordić,” the US Embassy said on Twitter.
As they pointed out, “his willingness to repeat his heinous actions shows that he has no remorse for the crimes he committed.”
They added that, given the seriousness of his comments, the competent institutions must react.
Hague convict and war criminal Dario Kordic was filmed last year giving a shameful answer to the question “Was it worth the prison and the war”, and that video has now been made public.
It is assumed that the recording was made last year on August 5th, during the celebration of the anniversary of Operation “Storm”, and those present greeted him with applause after he said that he would do it all again.
The video begins with Kordic recounting his conversation with one of the people present at the gathering.
“He asked me privately if the prison, the war, was worth it. I told him I would do it all over again, I wouldn’t change a second, every second was worth it,” he said.
This was followed by applause and together they sang Miroslav Skoro’s song “Vrijedilo je” (It was worth it) in which the lyrics read: “It was worth every drop of sweat on my face, it was worth it because God is blessing us today!”.
Kordic was sentenced to 25 years before the Hague Tribunal for the bloody attack in Ahmici, but after two-thirds of the sentence, more precisely after 17 years behind bars, he was released in 2014 and was on parole until 2022.
Although the Croatian media wrote that he was rehabilitated after his release from prison, and Croatian politicians tried to rehabilitate him with various statements and support, it is clear that he does not feel remorse or sympathy for the victims.
President of the Association of Genocide Victims and Witnesses in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) Murat Tahirovic reacted by saying that such statements show that he would commit crimes again.
“With what pleasure he says it, it is obvious that he would repeat it. If we were a serious country, Kordic would have already been arrested. Shame on everyone who still thinks that the statements of Lidija Bradara and Sanja Vlaisavljevic are just wrong expressions, and not the continuity of criminal politics,” said Tahirovic.
Given that similar shameful statements have never been prosecuted in BiH, it is difficult to expect that Kordic will feel the consequences of what he said. However, after Valentin Inzko brought changes to the Criminal Code of BiH with the aim of preventing the denial or glorification of war crimes, this kind of statement should at least be the subject of an investigation by the Prosecutor’s Office of BiH.
