Totić kidnapping

Totić kidnapping was an April 1993 kidnapping of Živko Totić, the head of the Croatian Defence Council (HVO) Military Police in Zenica and a few other persons. It is alleged that the kidnapping was performed by Muslim forces. The claim is presented by the Defence case during Kupreškić trial in the ICTY against Croat soldiers accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity on Bosniaks during Lašva Valley ethnic cleansing. It is said the kidnapping sparked the Lašva Valley ethnic cleansing. However, the ICTY found that the evidence revealed a tendency on the Croat side to spread alarm among the Croat population. A videotape of a news programme reporting the kidnapping of Živko Totić, is also instructive. The broadcaster recites all the alleged crimes committed by the Bosniaks against the Croats in an apparent attempt to incite hatred against the Bosnian Muslims and Bosnian Army. This vitiates Zvonimir Cilic's assertion that the Croat leadership was trying to achieve conciliation among ethnic groups, but to prepare their own population for an attack on the Bosnian Muslims creating misinformation and propaganda.

The Kidnapping

 * According to unverified claims on April 13, 1993 four members of the Stjepan Tomašević Brigade were seized outside Novi Travnik. The four kidnapped personnel included Vlado Sliskovic, deputy commander of the Tomasevic Brigade; Ivica Kambic, the brigade SIS officer; Zdravko Kovac, the brigade intelligence officer; and their driver, Mire Jurkevic. The kidnapped HVO soldiers were allegedly bound, gagged, and blindfolded and remained so for most of their captivity.


 * At 7:50 on the morning of April 15, 1993 Živko Totić was kidnapped while en route to his headquarters. Živko Totić in testimony at the ICTY stated that on April 15, 1993 masked attackers wearing Bosnian Army insignias blocked his car in a Zenica suburb and killed his driver, two bodyguards and his brother-in-law, all with him in the car-as well as a passer-by. Having killed his escort, the kidnappers tied Totic up, placed a transparent black bag over his head, threw him into a van and drove him away, yelling "Allahu ekber."

Bosnian Army quickly ordered all units to help find the kidnapped men. During the ICTY it was claimed that the kidnappings were in response to HVO forces arresting and detaining 13 Bosnian Mujahideen. The ICTY Trial Chamber concluded that the Bosnian Army or the Bosniaks in general did plan to launch an attack on the Croats on 15–16 April 1993. Countrary, the ICTY Trial Chamber in the Kordić and Čerkez case based on the evidence of numerous HVO attacks at that time concluded that by April 1993 Croat leadership had a common design or plan conceived and executed to ethnically cleanse Bosniaks from the Lašva Valley. Dario Kordić, as the local political leader, was found to be the planner and instigator of this plan.