Since the ICTY told him to return more than 3 million euro in defence expenses, Slobodan Praljak, a former senior official of the Bosnian Croat wartime statelet, Herceg Bosna, has asked to be returned to tribunal custody.
The ICTY secretariat on August 23 told Praljak to return about 3.3 million euro in defence expenses that the ICTY has paid out to him since 2006.
The tribunal ordered Praljak to return the money within 90 days, because after seven years of investigation the secretariat had found out that Praljak owns more than 6 million euro of property in Croatia, Bosnia and Germany.
Based on that, the ICTY concluded that Praljak could pay for his own defence and had to return the money paid by ICTY.
After the ICTY released its request, the prosecution asked the court to return Praljak to custody from provisional release, where he has been since December, because he could escape.
At the same time, the ICTY ordered that Praljak's provisional release should be tightened from limited freedom to house arrest.
Praljak announced an appeal to that order via his lawer Nika Pinter.
In a communique released last Wednesday, Pinter said Praljak would rather return to Hague custody than stay in house arrest in the Croatian capital Zagreb, where he lives.
Praljak, a former vice minister of defence of Croatia and wartime commander of the Bosnioan Croatian militia, the Croatian Defence Council, HVO, is one of six former officials of Herceg-Bosna charged with war crimes and ethnic cleansing of Bosniaks during the Croat-Bosniak conflict in Bosnia of 1993-1994.
They were indicted in 2004 and all surrendered to the ICTY in April that year. The trial started in April 2006. and turned into one of the longest at the ICTY.
The closing words were said last February. A sentence is expected by the end of this year or in spring 2013.
Timeline of events in the case against 13 former Serb fighters charged with committing war crimes in the villages of Cuska, Zahac, Ljubenic and Pavlac in Kosovo in 1999.