Azra Bašić

Crimes According to testimonies, on April 26, 1992, Croat groups, with the assistance of Croatian military units, entered the village of Čardak and took dozens of local Serbs hostage. Although the settlement was majority Serb, Croat and Muslims had previously formed joint units and threatened to kill and expel the Serb population. Many were taken to a former Yugoslavian National Army (YNA) Centre.

Prisoners at the facility were subjected to torture and beatings. A witness testified that Bašić brought a Croatian flag with a checkerboard coat of arms and ordered prisoners to kiss it and made them eat Yugoslav dinar paper money. She engraved a cross and the letter ‘S’ on prisoners' backs and foreheads with knives, put salt on their wounds and forced them to lick it. She also punched detainees in their genitals and threatened to circumcise them. One witness said Bašić forced him to drink gasoline and then set his face and hands on fire. Others described how they were made to crawl half naked across broken glass with a knotted rope in their mouths and a Croatian soldier on their backs.

On 27 December 2017, a Bosnian court sentenced her to 14 years in prison for taking part in "killing and inhumane treatment, infliction of great pain and violation of bodily integrity and health" of detained civilians. It is the longest sentence handed down to a woman convicted of war crimes during the Bosnian War.