The indictment, submitted by Prosecutor Richard Goldstone on 2 November 1995, was unsealed on Tuesday, 12 October, following the order of Judge O-Gon Kwon. A warrant for the arrest of Bralo, a former member of a Bosnian Croat special military unit called 'Dzokeri ' was issued on the same day.
The five-page 21-count indictment charges Bralo with unlawful imprisonment of Bosniak (Bosnian Muslim) civilians, inhumane and cruel treatment of detainees, torture and murder of three detainees, multiple rape and torture of a female detainee.
Bralo was born on 13 October 1967 in the village of Kratine, near the central Bosnian town of Vitez.
The indictment alleges that from 21 April to 10 May 1993 Bralo, together with other Bosnian Croat (HVO) soldiers, arrested and kept in confinement Bosniak civilians and forced them to dig trenches for HVO units in his birthplace. The prisoners had to work almost without any rest or food.
According to the indictment, Bralo forced Muslims to perform Catholic rites, threatening to kill or hurt them.
The name of Miroslav Bralo was mentioned during trials of some other Bosnian Croats in The Hague. During the trial of Anto Furundzija, a former 'Dzokeri' commander who was sentenced to 10 years in jail, Furundzija was found guilty, among other things, of failing to prevent Bralo from raping a captured Bosniak woman.
He was mentioned as one who tortured POWs at the trials of Zlatko Aleksovski and Tihomir Blaskic in The Hague.
The Washington Post reported in 1997 that in July that year, Bralo turned himself in to Dutch peace-keepers in the town of Vitez who were deployed as part of the NATO-led Stabilisation Force (SFOR). He told them he had committed several murders, but the Dutch SFOR soldiers only put down his name and address, informing him that he had not been cited on the ICTY list of indictees.
After that event, the Hague-based tribunal insisted on Bralo's apprehension, but the then US commander of local SFOR troops prevented the operation.