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Ejup Ganic.

In his final days as president, Josipovic decorated Ganic on Monday with the Order of Duke Branimir, which is given for promoting Croatia internationally.

“This medal means a lot to me. I supported the development of Croatia, its legitimate defence, when the guns from one former JNA [Yugoslav People’s Army] ship systematically targeted every hotel in Dubrovnik. Then I said on CNN, if the international community does not react now, it won’t be good,” Ganic said after receiving the medal.

Ganic said that Bosnia and Herzegovina was on the path to the EU, but called Serbia the “main problem in the Balkans”.

“This country needs to adapt to common European values. They are not the heirs of Yugoslavia; they are destroyers of Yugoslavia,” he said.

Before the 1992-95 war, Ganic, who was born in Serbia’s mainly Muslim Sandzak region, worked as a researcher at the University of Belgrade.

For less than 48 hours in May 1992, Ganic was the president of Bosnia, stepping in for Alija Izetbegovic who had been taken hostage by the Yugoslav People’s Army at Sarajevo airport.

Ganic negotiated the safe passage of the JNA troops that remained in Sarajevo, but as the withdrawing convoy came under attack from Bosnian forces trying to free their president. Dozens of JNA soldiers were killed.

Serbian prosecutors believe Ganic ordered the attack on the convoy, although he has denied this.

He was arrested at London’s Heathrow Airport in 2010 on the basis of a Serbian arrest warrant. But a British court blocked his extradition, saying that it was politically motivated.

Ganic remained in the presidency for the rest of the 1992-95 war and later served as president of the Bosniak-Croat Federation, one of the two Bosnian political entities.