International criminal tribunal for former Yugoslavia asks Dutch police to investigate how poison was smuggled into court

This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

Dutch police have launched a criminal investigation into the death of the Bosnian Croat commander Slobodan Praljak, who swallowed poison as his appeal verdict was being streamed live around the world.

The international criminal tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) has invited local police officers to conduct the inquiry into how the chemical was smuggled into the high-security courtroom in The Hague.

A spokeswoman for the war crimes court said: “An independent investigation is ongoing which has been initiated by the Dutch authorities at the request of the ICTY. We will cooperate fully.”



She did not reveal whether anybody had yet been arrested or what type of chemical or toxic agent Praljak drank.

The day I came face to face with General Slobodan Praljak in The Hague Read more

A Dutch prosecutor, Marilyn Fikenscher, confirmed that the phial from which Praljak drank was found to have held a deadly poison. “There was a preliminary test of the substance in the container and all I can say for now is that there was a chemical substance in that container that can cause death,” Fikenscher said.

A prosecution spokesman said an autopsy would be carried out shortly.

Praljak, 72, consumed the contents of the bottle in full view of the cameras filming the hearing, seconds after a UN appeals judge had confirmed a 20-year sentence against him on Wednesday. “I just drank poison,” he informed the astonished judges. “I am not a war criminal. I oppose this conviction.” He was rushed to hospital by ambulance and died later.

The ICTY’s website declared before Wednesday’s hearing: “All persons entering the building are subject to security checks of themselves and their belongings.”

Recent adverts for security officers at the ICTY specified experience in “use of technical screening equipment to prevent prohibited items from entering the tribunal premises”. Candidates were required to have a high school diploma or equivalent.

There are questions about how Praljak acquired the substance, and whether it was supplied to him by a visitor to the fortress-like UN detention centre in Scheveningen, near The Hague, where Praljak was being held.

Under court rules, everyone entering the detention centre is subject to tight security “irrespective of his or her status, nationality, function or age”. Everyone must pass through security scanners and there may also be a search of clothing.

Detainees are allowed to have access to their medications, administered under the supervision of the chief medical officer. They are allowed approved visits from personal doctors.



The Dutch newspaper NRC said many of the suspects there were elderly and “suffering from all sorts of illnesses”. It said it was “not unusual that he could have brought his medication to hearings”.

Praljak’s lawyer, Nika Pinter, was quoted by Croatia’s Hina news agency on Thursday as saying: “It has never occurred to me that he could do something like that.”

Pinter described Praljak as “an honourable man who could not live with the war crimes conviction and leave that courtroom handcuffed.”

Praljak was convicted in 2013 of crimes including murder, persecution and deportation for his role in a plan to carve out a Bosnian Croat mini-state in Bosnia in the early 1990s.

In the Croatian capital, Zagreb, MPs observed a minute’s silence. The parliament’s speaker, Gordan Jandroković, called on members to remember “all victims of the wars in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina”, including civilians and “the killed and missing Croatian defenders”.

“All victims have to remain forever in our collective consciousness and yesterday’s death of General Praljak should remain the last act of the tragic events of war,” he said.

Two MPs were reported to have received death threats on social media after refusing to attend the commemoration.



Hundreds of Bosnian Croats lit candles in public squares around the country in memory of Praljak. Photographs of him were put up on walls. There was a heightened police presence in many cities.