SARAJEVO, June 1 (News Agencies) - Defense officials in Bosnian's Muslim-Croat entity on Friday filed criminal charges against 18 former top officials who allegedly abused their positions to aid hardline Croat nationalists, news agencies reported.
The charges were pressed due to their "abuse of official position and irresponsible performance in public service," the Muslim-Croat defense ministry said in a statement. It did not give details of the charges.
Local media have often speculated that a number of Croat officials in the ministry were abusing their authority, notably removing documents and embezzling funds, to support a bid by Croat radical activists to seek self-rule.
Bosnian Croat ultra-nationalists proclaimed "temporary Croat autonomy" in their region in early March, turning their backs on both the Muslim-Croat entity and the country's central institutions.
The 18 charged previously held positions of assistants and heads of departments in the ministry, officials said.
The charges were filed with the prosecutor's office of the Muslim-Croat Federation, which together with the Serb-run entity of Republika Srpska (RS) makes up postwar Bosnia.
In mid-May the ministry pressed charges against the three top Bosnian Croat nationalist officials, including the former Muslim-Croat defense minister, Miroslav Prce, and former deputy commander of the Muslim-Croat Army, General Colonel Dragan Curic.
Charges were also filed against Ante Jelavic, the former Croat member of Bosnia's tripartite presidency, who was dismissed by the country's top international envoy when he declared his backing for the Croat separatist movement.
The three have been accused of "undermining military and defense power" after siding with the nationalists. The international community unanimously condemned the move as being against the Dayton peace accords that ended Bosnia's 1992-95 war.
The nationalists were seen as a threat to the Dayton peace agreement, which ended the armed conflict in Bosnia in December 1995, whose activities have been condemned internationally as a threat to the country's fragile structure.
The U.N. war crimes tribunal has sentenced several ultra-nationalist officials from the wartime Bosnian Croat republic to prison terms for their role in a nearly three-year campaign to drive out Muslims from central Bosnia.
