CAPITALS — The Dutch authorities have opened an investigation into how a Bosnian Croat war criminal smuggled poison into a courtroom in The Hague to kill himself during a televised appeal hearing.
Slobodan Praljak, 72, died in hospital on Wednesday shortly after downing a small vial of liquid, which he drank after declaring he was innocent.
His 20-year sentence for war crimes in Bosnia had just been reaffirmed.
Some Bosnian Croats have held vigils to remember a man they regard as a hero.
Croatia's Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic made a scathing attack on the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), which tried him.
The confirmation rulings against Praljak and five other defendants brought an end to more than 20 years of work by the tribunal.
Praljak's suicide was not the first during The Hague trials: Croatian Serb war crimes suspect Slavko Dokmanovic hanged himself in his cell in 1998, and fellow Croatian Serb Milan Babic killed himself in his cell in 2006.
(BBC)
