Mladen Naletilić

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Mladen Naletilić, known as "Tuta", before the International Court of Justice for the former Yugoslavia

Mladen Naletilić (born December 1, 1946 in Široki Brijeg , † December 17, 2021 in Mostar ), called Tuta , was a warlord in the Bosnian War and alleged leading gang criminal . He founded and commanded the paramilitary Kažnjenička bojna (convict battalion ) of the Croatian Defense Council (HVO) . Naletilić was charged with " ethnic cleansing " by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) as a war criminalBosniaks sentenced to 20 years in prison, two-thirds of which he served.

Life

Naletilić was born on December 1, 1946 in Široki Brijeg as the son of Mate and Slavka Naletilić, who had five more children together. He is said to have attended secondary school together with the future Croatian Foreign Minister Gojko Šušak (1945–1998), with whom he is said to have been known. Naletilić emigrated to West Germany as a guest worker around 1968 . There he is supposed to join the extremist émigré association Bund der Vereinigte Kroaten Deutschlands e. V. have heard.

The beginning of the 1970s to Naletilic a relationship with the Greens -Politikerin and Stasi - Agent Brigitte Heinrich (1941-1987) had with her in Mainz have lived. Until the end of the 1980s, Naletilić was known as a casino and night club operator in Singen . He worked with the German Federal Intelligence Service and the Bulgarian Committee for State Security . According to documents from the British daily The Guardian , Naletilić worked as an agent for the Yugoslav secret service "UDBA" , with the task of reporting on "the Ustasha emigrants in Germany and everywhere".

Sleeve badge of the Kažnjenička bojna (around 1993)

Coming to Croatia during the breakup of Yugoslavia in the early 1990s , Naletilić founded the Kažnjenička bojna (convict battalion) there, which he relocated to Široki Brijeg after the outbreak of the Bosnian War . A group of members of the unit is said to have been involved in the liquidation of the HOS leader Blaž Kraljević and eight of his colleagues in Kruševo near Mostar on August 9, 1992 . According to the official version, HOS members shot at the checkpoint of the Croatian Defense Council, after which Kraljević and his entourage were killed. The exact circumstances of the crime were never clarified.

The convict battalion took part in the Croatian-Bosniak War and fought near Jablanica and Mostar , among other places . During the fighting for Mostar, Naletilić propagated his reputation as a folk hero and enjoyed a high reputation as a "living legend". For example, posters with the inscription “Tuta - Naša pobjeda” (Tuta - Our Victory!) Were distributed and the song Čuvaj Tuta Mostar (Tuta forbid Mostar!) Was published. Naletilić came into conflict with high-ranking HVO officials, so in November 1993 with General Slobodan Praljak (1945-2017). As a result of the arbitrariness exercised by him and his unit, there was almost an internal conflict in Herzegovina. Due to its semi-illegal or illegal activities, Naletilić also became an increasing problem for the authorities in Croatia. The then head of the Croatian secret service HIS Miroslav Tuđman (1946-2021) characterized him in an official letter to the then Croatian president, his father Franjo Tuđman (1922-1999), as a member of the criminal underworld , brothel operator abroad and fake political emigrant who has nothing to do with the international terrorists of ETA or the Baader-Meinhof Group , which he would often brag about.

In December 1993, a group of members of Kažnjenička bojna stormed Ljubuški prison , disarmed the guards and kidnapped HVO military policeman Robert Nosić, who had previously wounded a member of the unit in an argument. Nosić has been missing since then. After Naletilić was charged with kidnapping, he was arrested in February 1997 by members of the anti-terrorist unit Lučko in Croatia and imprisoned for two years in Remetinec prison.

In 1998 the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) brought charges against Naletilić, who was then extradited to The Hague by the Croatian authorities in March 2000 . During his imprisonment he played volleyball regularly , was in contact with Slobodan Milosević (1941-2006) and, according to media reports, regularly played chess with Vojislav Šešelj (* 1954). Naletilić was sentenced to 20 years in prison by the ICTY for “persecution, torture and expulsion of Muslims in western Herzegovina”. He spent most of his sentence in The Hague and the last few years in Rebibbia prison in Rome .

After serving two-thirds of his 20-year sentence, Naletilić was released in February 2013. Immediately after arriving in Croatia, he was charged with the murder of Robert Nosić. The prosecution dropped all charges at the first hearing on April 26, 2013. No charges were ever brought on any further allegations.

Naletilić had two sons who, like him, lived in the Croatian capital Zagreb . The villa he built on the Cigansko brdo (Gypsy Hill) above Široki Brijeg is empty.

He died on December 17, 2021 at the age of 75 in Mostar University Clinical Hospital of the aftermath of a serious heart attack that he had suffered several days earlier.

Literature and sources

  • Jasna Babić : Zagrebačka mafija (Zagreb Mafia) . 2nd Edition. 2004, Tuta, p. 40-58 (Croatian).
  • Ivo Žanić: Flag on the Mountain: A Political Anthropology of War in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina: 1990–1995 . SAQI, The Bosnian Institute, London 2007, ISBN 978-0-86356-815-2 , The Hajduk Outside Institutions, pp. 507–509 (Croatian: Prevarena povijest . Zagreb 1998. Translated by Graham McMaster, Celia Hawkesworth, about Naletilić's staging as a folk hero).
  • Online biography. In: www.vecernji.hr. Večernji list , December 1, 2016, accessed December 9, 2021 (Croatian).

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Paul Hockenos: Homeland Calling: Exile Patriotism and the Balkan Wars . Cornell University Press, 2018, ISBN 978-1-5017-2565-4 , pp. 93 .
  2. ↑ Ivan Toma: Haaški optuženik - hercegovački miljenik [Hague accused - Herzegovinian darling] . In: Slobodna Dalmacija . August 6, 1999 ( slobodnadalmacija.hr [accessed November 30, 2017]).
  3. ^ Mladen Naletilić Tuta. November 21, 2017. Retrieved November 30, 2017 .
  4. ↑ Oliver Fiedler (of): 20 years for Mladen Naletilic . In: Wochenblatt . No. 19 . Singing May 10, 2006, p. 19 ( wochenblatt.net [PDF]).
  5. ↑ Jasna Babić : Po Šuškovu naređenju, Tutina bojna ubijala je 'loše' Hrvate (Tuta's battalion killed “bad” Croatians on Šušak's orders) . In: Nacional . No. 342 , June 5, 2002 (Croatian, nacional.hr ).
  6. ↑ The Guardian, March 18, 1996, p. 8. Quoted from Paul Hockenos: Homeland Calling: Exile Patriotism and the Balkan Wars . Cornell University Press, 2018, ISBN 978-1-5017-2565-4 , pp. 94 , footnote 18 .
  7. ↑ a b Željko Ivanković, Dunja Melčić: The Bosniak-Croatian "War in War" . In: Dunja Melčić (Ed.): The Yugoslavian War: Handbook on Prehistory, Course and Consequences . 2nd updated and expanded edition. VS Verlag for social sciences, 2007, ISBN 978-3-531-33219-2 , pp. 426 .
  8. ↑ Late sentence. In: dw.com. Deutsche Welle , April 1, 2003, accessed December 9, 2021 .
  9. ↑ Robert Bajruši: M. Tuđman and pismu ocu: Tuta ever kriminalac i svodnik (M. Tudjman in a letter to his father: Tuta is a criminal and a pimp) . In: Nacional . No. 347 , July 10, 2002 (Croatian, nacional.hr ).
  10. ↑ U Mostaru preminuo Mladen Naletilic Tuta. In: www.vecernji.hr. Večernji list , December 17, 2021, accessed December 17, 2021 (Croatian).
personal data
SURNAME Naletilić, Mladen
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Tuta (nickname)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION former warlord and war criminal
BIRTH DATE December 1, 1946
PLACE OF BIRTH Široki Brijeg
DATE OF DEATH December 17, 2021
PLACE OF DEATH Mostar