Sljivancanin said that he had been granted early release according to the practice and procedure of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) to allow convicts leave prison after serving two thirds of their sentences.
The UN tribunal found him guilty of aiding and abetting the torture of prisoners of war at the Ovcara farm after the fall of the Croatian town of Vukovar and sentenced to 10 years in prison.
Sljivancanin told the B92 television that he was sorry for victims in the entire area of former Yugoslavia as he said that had been the country which he liked and to which he trusted and whose soldier he used to be.
As for ICTY President Patrick Robinson's statement that he expressed "remorse for the terrible events which took place not only in Vukovar but all over the territory of the former Yugoslavia" but that he "does not express remorse for his own crimes", this former JNA officer said that he still thought that he had committed no crime.
He said that only persons having nothing human about themselves could kill prisoners of war, as it was the case at Ovcara.
Sljivancanin was convicted for the Ovcara atrocities against Croatians, perpetrated in November 1991, and in 2007 the trial chamber sentenced him to five years, while the appeals chamber raised this sentence to 17 years. However, in 2010, this UN tribunal revised this sentence to 10 years, which was the first time for the tribunal to revise a final judgement.
The reduction of the prison term for the Ovcara atrocities triggered off outrage in Croatia just as his early release shocked residents of Vukovar.
Sljivancanin was arrested in Belgrade on 13 June 2003, and transferred to the Scheveningen detention centre of the ICTY tribunal on 1 July 2003. The trial commenced on 11 October 2005.
He was released from detention in December 2007 after he served 90 percent of the five-year sentence ruled by the trial chamber. He was brought back to Scheveningen on 4 May 2009, a day ahead of the rendering of the appeals chamber's final judgement when he was given 17 years and was kept in the ICTY detention centre until last Thursday..