Several thousand people, including military and police personnel, watched as his coffin, covered with a Croatian flag, was laid in the grave. Some soil brought from his hometown of Gorica in Herzegovina was placed in the grave, and his wife Julienne was presented with the flag.

Brigadier Bruno Zorica said that Busic's death was a tragic and immeasurable loss, describing him as a fighter for Croatia's freedom and a dignified life and against Tito's dictatorial and totalitarian communist regime. Busic was a torchbearer of the freedom of thought, he sacrificed his freedom for the freedom of others, and his unbreakable spirit, during 32 years in prison, was woven into the free Croatia, he said.

Busic committed suicide on September 1 in his home in Rovanjska near the coastal city of Zadar, leaving a letter in which he said he could no longer live in a "Plato's cave".

Busic was born in Gorica, near Grude, in southern Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1946. He spent 32 years in prison in the United States for his role in the hijacking of an airplane, with 76 passengers on board, en route from New York to Chicago in September 1976 and for the death of a policeman. By hijacking the plane, his group wanted to draw attention to the position of Croatia in Yugoslavia at the time by throwing leaflets over London and Paris. The plane landed in Paris and the hijackers surrendered.

The hijackers did not have any weapons aboard the plane, only fake explosive, while Busic had left a real bomb in a locker at a New York subway station. One police officer was killed as he tried to defuse the bomb, while three others were injured. Busic was sentenced to life imprisonment, but was pardoned in July 2008 and deported to Croatia.