Around 1975, he joined the League of Communists. In 1987, he received his doctorate from the Faculty of Economics in Sarajevo. He passed through all levels of professorship before becoming a full professor. In 1988, he became a mayor of Mostar and in 1989 he became the Vice-President of the state Executive Council of Bosnia and Herzegovina. During and immediately after the 1990 elections he held the position of Acting President of the Bosnia and Herzegovina Government. In early March 1992, he travelled to the United States to study the U.S. approach to market economics. Upon his return to Mostar the city was under siege and Prlić joined the Croatian Defence Council and took active participation in war.
Indictment
The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia indictment states that as a leading politician of the Croatian Defence Council or HVO in the early 1990s Prlić had almost total power and control of the Croatian Republic of Herzeg-Bosnia government. Therefore, as the leader of the HVO government he had the power to remove, military civilian commanders who had taken part of ordered crimes against humanity. He had the power to close HVO concentrations camps. He was charged with:
9 counts of grave breaches of the Geneva conventions ; unlawful deportation of a civilian; unlawful transfer of a civilian; unlawful confinement of a civilian; inhuman treatment
8 counts of crimes against humanity ; imprisonment; inhumane acts
On 29 May 2013, in a first instance verdict, the ICTY sentenced Prlić to 25 years in prison. The tribunal also convicted five other war time leaders of the joint trial: defence minister of Herzeg-Bosnia Bruno Stojić, military officersSlobodan Praljak and Milivoj Petković, military police commander Valentin Ćorić, and head of prisoner exchanges and detention facilities Berislav Pušić. The Chamber ruled, by majority, with the presiding judge Jean-Claude Antonetti dissenting, that they took part in a joint criminal enterprise against the non-Croat population of Bosnia and Herzegovina. It concluded that "in the majority of cases, the crimes committed were not the random acts of a few unruly soldiers. On the contrary, these crimes were the result of a plan drawn up by members of the JCE whose goal was to permanently remove the Muslim population from Herceg-Bosna." The Chamber also ruled, by majority, that the JCE included the President of CroatiaFranjo Tuđman, defence minister Gojko Šušak, and general Janko Bobetko. However, on 19 July 2016 the Appeals Chamber in the case announced that the "Trial Chamber made no explicit findings concerning participation in the JCE and did not find guilty of any crimes." The ICTY Appeals Chamber affirmed almost all of the convictions against Prlic and his co-defendants, as well as their length of sentence, on 29 November 2017.
