The former Yugoslav major general in the photo, unwilling to be humiliated by the "International Military Tribunal", drank poison in public in the court to prove his innocence by death.
After drinking the poison, the general, with the last ounce of strength, angrily said to the judge:
"I am not a war criminal, I disdain your sentence"!
Slobodan Praljak was born in 1945, at the end of World War II, the son of a Yugoslav partisan cadre who later became an official in the "State Protection Service" of the Tito regime.
After graduating from university, he quit his job as a high school teacher to become a freelance artist and a theater director. In the eighties of the last century, he directed several TV series and was very famous.
After the outbreak of the Yugoslav Civil War in 1991, he volunteered for the newly formed Croatian National Army. Despite having no military education, he led this motley army to successfully repel the Yugoslav People's Army and the "Republika Srpska Srpska" army on the front line, thus becoming a legendary hero in Croatia.
After Croatia's independence, Praljak was awarded the rank of major general of the Croatian army, and was elected as a member of the Croatian National Defence Council and a member of the Croatian National Committee on United Nations Peacekeeping Forces Affairs.
In November 1993, he resigned as a result of clashes with local Croatian nationalist army chiefs in Croat-populated areas of Bosnia and Herzegovina. He then went into business, using his connections to start a company. The company is very prosperous, in the 2000s, there was an annual profit of 20 million yuan, so it is estimated that he is worth hundreds of millions.
However, because he was wanted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, he had to surrender to the Tribunal on 5 April 2004.
Following his surrender, he was transferred to the ICTY. In his indictment, accused of committing large-scale war crimes against the Muslim population, the court sentenced him to 20 years in prison.
Praljak appealed against the verdict, preferring to die rather than admit that he was a war criminal. At his insistence, on 29 November 2017, the ICTY reconvened and the outcome of the trial continued to find him guilty.
While some parts of his conviction were overturned, the judge did not reduce the 20-year preliminary sentence.
Under this unjust sentence, Praljak's mood completely collapsed. He got emotional and shouted out his last words in court:
"Judges Slobodan Pralyak is not a war criminal! I refuse to accept your judgment. ”
After saying this, in full view of everyone, he took out a bottle of liquid and drank it on the spot.
It was later learned that Prariak drank potassium cyanide, a colorless or white solid with an almond smell and soluble in water. As long as humans ingest 0.1 grams, symptoms such as slowed heartbeat and loss of consciousness may occur within a few minutes, and if they are not detoxified as soon as possible, their heartbeats will stop within a few hours.
In 1945, Hitler and Eva committed suicide by taking cyanide. (Hitler committed suicide with a pistol before the poison).
Prariak swallowed the poison and sat down in his chair. His lawyer Ivanovich, who was closer to him, saw this scene in his eyes and immediately shouted: "In court! My client took poison! ”
But the judge could not hear what was happening for a while, and appeared indifferent.
It wasn't until Prariak began to gasp loudly and his eyes lost their brink that the guards rushed over and lowered him to the ground. The court's infirmary then sent two doctors to perform CPR on Prariak. Medical paramedics arrived at the courtroom 20 minutes later and it took another 40 minutes to take him to the hospital.
But due to too long delay, he died in the hospital.
On this matter, people have questioned the court's ability to respond, and even said that they could not save it.
Prariak, who lives in a high-security prison, stripped naked and searched when he entered the courtroom. All items are subject to X-ray machine inspection, just like aircraft security, metal and liquids are not allowed.
Where did Prariak's poison come from? People don't know.
Its tragic outcome has had far-reaching international repercussions, and many people have begun to question the justice of the so-called international tribunal.
Without the intervention of the West, Yugoslavia would not have collapsed, and the former major general and billionaire of the army would not have died tragically.
