The Zagreb County Court spokesman, Kresimir Devcic, confirmed on Monday that Bender, one of the founders of the Croat Republic of Herceg Bosna, was apprehended on 18 May and taken to the Remetinec prison in the Croatian capital.
The Supreme Court of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bosnia's Croat-Bosniak entity, in 2006 sentenced Bender to prison and two years later the verdict was upheld by the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina. In June 2010, the Bosnian Justice Ministry requested that Bender serve his sentence in Croatia in line with the two countries' agreement on the mutual enforcement of final court verdicts in criminal matters.
The Zagreb County Court then upheld the Bosnian verdict, against which Bender unsuccessfully appealed to the Supreme Court, which ruled that the County Court was not authorised to evaluate facts established by the verdict.
The Supreme Court ruled that this was not a case in which the convict's guilt should be established, and that under the Croatian-Bosnian agreement, Croatia had to honor the facts on which the decision of the Bosnian court was based. Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina signed the agreement on the mutual enforcement of final court verdicts in criminal matters in early February 2010.
Bender moved from Neum, Bosnia and Herzegovina, to Zagreb in 2006, two days after the Supreme Court of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina upheld the judgement against him because, as director of the pension insurance fund of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, he unlawfully sold the Ero Hotel in Mostar.