Fikret Abdic, who served prison sentence for war crimes, has been elected as mayor of Velika Kladusa, town in Western Bosnia.
Abdic is a Bosniak who fought against main Bosniak forces during the 1992-1995 war in Bosnia.
In the Sunday elections, he was elected as mayor of the town where majority of his followers live.
In the early 1990s, during the Bosnian War, Abdic declared his opposition to the official Bosnian government, and established the Autonomous Province of Western Bosnia, a small and short-lived province in the northwestern corner of Bosnia and Herzegovina composed of the town of Velika Kladusa and nearby villages.
The mini-state existed between 1993 and 1995 and was allied with the Army of Republika Srpska.
In 2002 he was convicted on charges of war crimes against Bosniaks loyal to the Bosnian government, by a court in Croatia and sentenced to 20 years imprisonment, which was later reduced on appeal to 15 years by the Supreme Court of Croatia.
On 9 March 2012, he was released after having served two thirds of his reduced sentence.
