Goran Hadzic
Charged with crimes against humanity; violations of the laws or customs of war
Goran Hadzic was born in 1958 in Croatia. Prior to the conflict, Hadzic worked as a warehouseman. He became politically active in his youth as a member of the League of Communists. Hadzic later joined the Serbian Democratic Party (SDS) before the outbreak of the Bosnian Serb war and quickly rose through the ranks. In 1992, Hadzic was elected President of the self-proclaimed Republic of Serbian Krajina, a territory seized from Croatia by Serbs in rebellion against Croatia’s declaration of independence. He held this position until December 1993.
Hadzic faces 14 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity for his alleged involvement in the forcible removal and murder of thousands of Croatian civilians from the Republic of Croatia between 1991 and 1993. His indictment specifically names the 1991 massacre of 250 Croatian and non-Serb civilians from the Vukovar hospital in one of the first atrocities of the war.
In 2004, as he was about to be arrested, Hadzic disappeared from his home in Serbia.
