Croatia wants 'Captain Dragan' January 12, 2006
CROATIA will ask Australia to extradite a Serb commander, now an Australian citizen, charged with war crimes committed during Croatia's 1991-95 independence war, Justice Minister Vesna Skare-Ozbold said overnight. Croatia accuses Perth-based golf teacher and Yugoslav migrant Dragan Vasiljkovic, 51, of torturing and killing Croat soldiers and civilians on the rebel Serb-held territories when he commanded a Serb paramilitary unit. Vasiljkovic, also known as Captain Dragan, has dual Australian and Serbian citizenship. "We will ask Australian authorities to extradite Vasiljkovic as he is charged with committing war crimes in Croatia," Ms Skare-Ozbold said. She said Australia could extradite its citizens to other countries where they face legal proceedings. "Any country which is a UN member is also under obligation to open a trial itself if it does not extradite its citizen charged with war crimes," she said. Vasiljkovic told SBS radio in Melbourne yesterday he would return to Croatia only "as the commander of a tank brigade" and later told News Ltd newspapers the Croatian government was "fascist and its evidence against him would not be accepted "even in the pubs". Prosecutors in the southern Croatian town of Sibenik have accused Vasiljkovic of presiding over the killing of civilians, the torture of prisoners of war and the forced expulsion of entire villages during fighting at Knin Fort and Glina in mid-1991 and Bruska in February 1993 in southern Croatia. He has admitted in media interviews to training Serbian recruits, interrogating enemy soldiers, killing in combat and leading attacks on command posts during the Balkans war. But in media interviews he has repeatedly denied committing any crimes against humanity and said he was prepared to return to the country to defend himself against the claims. Croatia declared independence from communist Yugoslavia in 1991, but its Serb minority, backed by Belgrade, rebelled against it and seized one third of the country by force. Croatia crushed the rebellion in two offensives in 1995. http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,17799338%255E1702,00.html Serbian News Network - SNN [email protected] http://www.antic.org/
