Convicted war criminal Radoslav Brđanin died in Banja Luka. He died in the Clinical Center in Banja Luka.
The man from Brđa was released a few days ago after serving two-thirds of his sentence for war crimes, and he arrived in Banja Luka in poor health.
According to the general director of UKC RS Vlado Đajić, Brđanin died this morning at 7:10 am. From Saturday, September 3, 2022, the man from Brđa was hospitalized in the Intensive Care Medicine Clinic for non-surgical branches, where he was admitted in a very neglected state of health with elements of severe exhaustion of the body, elevated inflammatory parameters that indicated sepsis.
- After several days of hospitalization and treatment by a medical board consisting of intensivists, gastroenterologists, abdominal surgeons, oncologists and radiologists, and all the efforts of the medical staff to save his life, the patient died - it was announced from UKC RS.
This convicted war criminal is a former political leader of the Serbian Autonomous Region of Krajina. In 2007, the International Criminal Court for the former Yugoslavia handed down the final verdict to Radoslav Brđanin, sentencing him to 30 years in prison.
After the judgment of the Hague Tribunal, Brđanin has been serving his sentence in Denmark since 2008. After that, he was transferred to the detention unit of the Hague Mechanism for International Criminal Courts on September 14 last year.
The President of the International Mechanism for Criminal Courts (IMCM) Carmel Agius stated in his order to the Secretary of the Mechanism from August 25 that Denmark made it clear that "it does not consider it possible to continue the execution of the sentence for a long period and without a final deadline" and that Brđanin it must be transferred to another executing country or alternatively to the Mechanism, before a certain date in September 2021.
Agius referred to confidential memoranda provided to him by the Secretary of the Mechanism on April 16 and August 19, 2021, in which the Secretary, among other things, refers to previous announcements about Denmark's decisions to release Brđanin after he meets the conditions for early release under Danish law and requires the Brđan to be transferred from Denmark within a certain time frame.
According to Agius, this also indicates that no other country has been identified in which Brđan could serve the rest of his sentence, and since there is no practical alternative, it is recommended that Brđan return to the UN Detention Unit.
Agius instructed the secretary to lift the confidential status of this order after Brđanin is transferred to the Detention Unit.
In March of last year, President Agius rejected Brđanin's request for early release, as reported by the Balkan Research Network of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BIRN BiH).
Then in his decision, Agius stated that he "does not consider it appropriate to use his discretionary right and approve the early release of Brđanin at this stage".
- In particular, the great gravity of his crimes is an obstacle to his early release. Furthermore (...) the Brđanin did not show that he was successfully rehabilitated - stated Agius in his decision.
In February of this year, Brđanin again submitted a request for early release.
As it was stated in the new request of his lawyer Novak Lukić for early release, Brđanin is fully aware and accepts the position of MMKS president Carmelo Agius about the seriousness of the crime for which he was convicted.