Elvira Abdic-Jelenovic said that the motion for her father's conditional release had been filed this June and that the family did not ask for pardon.
She added that the reasons cited in the request were his age, because Abdic, convicted of war crimes his troops committed in western Bosnia during the intra-Bosniak conflict in the war, would soon turn 72, he had health problems and his behaviour in prison was exemplary.
The Croatian Justice Ministry's Department of Corrections today could not confirm the information that the parole board would meet on Monday, citing confidentiality.
In July 2002, the Karlovac County Court found Abdic, who holds both Croatian and Bosnian citizenship, guilty of war crimes and gave him a maximum sentence of 20 years. The court found him guilty of ordering, planning and organising concentration camps in the Velika Kladusa area of western Bosnia, near the border with Croatia, where he set up an autonomous province whose supreme commander and president he was. In the camps, detainees were inhumanely treated and forced to work. At least three persons died of injuries they sustained while they were abused. Approximately 5,000 people were detained in those camps, according to the Karlovac court's verdict.
Abdic, whom his followers called 'Babo', which means father in the spoken dialect of Bosnian Muslims, fell out with the then Bosnian Muslim leader Alija Izetbegovic in 1993. After that Abdic set up the unrecognised province in the area where he had a food-processing plant. He was tough towards his opponents, most of whom were local Muslims who supported Izetbegovic and the Party of Democratic Action (SDA).
The Supreme Court lowered his sentence to 15 years.