32nd Anniversary of the Death of Blaž Kraljević and Eight Comrades Marked
The death of the HOS commander and his eight comrades on August 9, 1992, near Kruševo remains shrouded in mystery, with investigations hitting dead ends.
The death of the HOS commander and his eight comrades on August 9, 1992, near Kruševo remains shrouded in mystery, with investigations hitting dead ends.
On this day, August 9, 1992, Blaž Kraljević, the commander of the Croatian Defense Forces (HOS) for Herzegovina, was killed in an ambush near the village of Kruševo, along with eight of his comrades. Although more than three decades have passed, the circumstances of their deaths remain one of the greatest enigmas of recent Croatian history, and statements from key figures of that time shed light on the possible political background of the killing.
Blaž Kraljević was born on September 17, 1947, near Ljubuški. As a political emigrant, he was slated to participate in the Bugojno Group in 1972, a failed attempt at an armed uprising against the communist authorities. He returned to Croatia in 1990 and became a prominent member of the Croatian Party of Rights (HSP), and was soon appointed by Dobroslav Paraga as the HOS commander for Herzegovina.
Shortly after the outbreak of the war, tensions grew between the HOS and the Croatian Defense Council (HVO). The HVO demanded that the HOS submit to their command, which Kraljević persistently refused. At the same time, the HOS was building increasingly better relations with the Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina. In June 1992, Kraljević met with Sefer Halilović, the Chief of Staff of the Army of BiH, received the rank of Major General, and joined the General Staff of the Army of BiH.
In early August 1992, just days before his death, the leader of Herceg-Bosna, Mate Boban, again demanded that Kraljević place the HOS under HVO command. Kraljević refused. The day before his death, in an interview with the newspaper Novi danas, he openly criticized Boban's policies.
"Mate Boban has different ideas from the HOS, and I believe his policy is not friendly towards Bosnia and Herzegovina. This is primarily about the question of its partition. Unlike the HVO, we protect all citizens of BiH from the aggressor and try to play fair without ulterior motives. We only want to liberate and protect Bosnia from the Chetniks," Kraljević said at the time.
On August 9, after a meeting attended by Bruno Stojić, the Minister of Defense of the Croatian Community of Herceg-Bosna, Kraljević was escorted to the meeting point by Vinko Martinović Štela, one of the HOS commanders in Mostar. In the afternoon, near Kruševo, his convoy was stopped by military police. It was an ambush. Fire was opened on the vehicles, and all passengers were killed. Along with Kraljević, Gordan Čuljak, Šahdo Delić, Ivan Granić, Rasim Krasniqi, Osman Maksić, Mario Medić, Vinko Primorac, and Marko Stjepanović lost their lives.
One of the most bizarre details of the entire case is that the bodies of the victims were accidentally discovered in a van in Omiš, about a hundred kilometers from the ambush site. To this day, it has not been clarified why the shooting occurred between two nominally allied sides, nor how the bodies ended up so far away. Kraljević was buried on August 13, 1992.
Due to Kraljević's conflicts with the HVO and Herceg-Bosna, his death is often viewed through a political lens. In 2015, Josip Manolić, one of President Franjo Tuđman's most prominent associates in the early years of the war, spoke about this on N1 television. Manolić recalled that Tuđman had entrusted Gojko Šušak with conducting war policy in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
"At one session of the National Security Council, Gojko raised the question of policy towards BiH and said it was being conducted on several tracks. 'From now on, Gojko, you are responsible for policy towards BiH,' Tuđman said in response," Manolić recounted.
Manolić was very explicit about the motives and fate of Kraljević, linking his death to the policies of the HDZ leadership. "Kraljević cooperated with Boban, then turned to Izetbegović. He worked for the interests of structures that were against Tuđman's policy. It is known who cut down Kraljević and why he suffered what he suffered. Tuđman was in favor of breaking up those forces that glorify the NDH and Pavelić, and he wanted to avoid me, as head of the intelligence service, being involved in that, so he offered it to Gojko Šušak," Manolić stated.
Several investigations into the deaths of Blaž Kraljević and his comrades have ended without concrete results. The County State Attorney's Office in Zagreb reopened the investigation in 2013, but the case remains unresolved.
