Croatian Serb war criminal, Hadzic dies

Croatian Serb rebel leader Goran Hadzic, tried by a UN war crimes court over his role in the 1991-1995 war in Croatia, died Tuesday, state-run Tanjug news agency reported.

“After a severe illness Goran Hadzic died today,” the agency said, quoting the regional hospital of Vojvodina province.

Hague-based UN war crimes judges had in April ordered an indefinite halt to the trial of Hadzic, 57, as he battled the advanced stages of terminal brain cancer.

Hadzic, the final suspect of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, was charged with 14 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity.



The accusations included the murder of civilians taken from Vukovar hospital in 1991 in one of the conflict’s darkest episodes.

His trial opened in October 2012, following his arrest in Serbia in 2011 after seven years on the run.

But Hadzic, who denied all the charges, was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer in November 2014, released provisionally six months later and allowed to return to northern Serbia for treatment.

He had lived at his home in Novi Sad since then.