Well, excuse me if my sympathies are limited.

Last week it was Ratko Mladić who grabbed headlines, and this time it’s Slobodan Praljak who has stolen the show.

A commander of Bosnian Croat forces during the Bosnian War, Praljak had his 20-year prison sentence upheld during a hearing at The Hague.

He didn’t take the news very well, slugging back some poison and later dying in hospital.

Here’s the footage of the sentence being upheld and the subsequent imbibing:

Via Al Jazeera, here are some more details:

…policemen and an ambulance were ordered to the tribunal building.

“Slobodan Praljak had his first instance verdict confirmed, in which he was sentenced to 20 years in prison,” [Denis Dzidic, deputy editor for the Detecor project] said.

“He said that he did not accept the verdict, that he was not a war criminal and then drank the substance.

“The judge then paused the proceedings and ordered the glass [from which Praljak drank] not be taken from court.

Praljak was taken to hospital but officially declared dead a few hours later.

Just to reaffirm why I’m not all that sympathetic, here’s the New York Times with what him and his cohorts were found guilty of:

Prosecutors said militias that were funded and staffed by the Croatian government, and following its orders, rounded up non-Croatian men, imprisoning up to 10,000. Women and the older people were abused, raped and, in some cases, killed. Tens of thousands fled. Most of the victims were Bosnian Muslims, also called Bosniaks, but Serbs and Roma people also suffered.

Good riddance.

[sources:aljazeera&nytimes]