Abdic was indicted by the Senior Public Prosecutor in the western Bosnian town of Bihac, and Croatia took over the trial based on the 1996 agreement on legal assistance between the two countries.
At the end of July 2003 the County Court in Karlovac, about 50 kilometres southwest of Zagreb, sentenced Abdic to 20 years in prison for declaring the Autonomous Province of Western Bosnia in violation of the Bosnian Constitution and for ordering, planning and organising the opening of camps where opponents of his state were detained.
Witnesses, mainly former camp inmates, said in their statements that they had been ill-treated in the camps and used as forced labour as a result of which some prisoners had died. Camp prisoners were also forced to fight in Abdic's paramilitary units, which was against the Geneva Convention.
According to the indictment, about 5,000 men, women and children passed through the camps operated by Abdic's forces. In addition to civilian camps, Abdic also set up camps for Bosnian government soldiers captured in battles against his men.
In his appeal, Abdic asked for acquittal, claiming that no organised persecutions and war crimes had been committed in his province.