Captain Dragan behind bars after raid Natasha Robinson January 21, 2006
A NOTORIOUS former Serb paramilitary leader accused of war crimes is behind bars in a maximum-security prison after federal police armed with an Interpol arrest warrant seized the golf instructor in a midnight raid at a Sydney apartment. Four months after The Australian found Dragan Vasiljkovic living in Perth as Daniel Snedden, the first stage of extradition proceedings was launched yesterday against the soldier known as Captain Dragan during the bloody Balkans conflict. As a commander in the Serbian paramilitary forces, Mr Vasiljkovic is alleged to have led a unit that killed civilians and tortured prisoners of war in the Croatian towns of Glina and Knin in mid-1991 and Bruska, near Benkovac, in February 1993. The Croatian Government wants Australia to send him to Croatia to face three war-crimes charges. The charges, according to papers lodged in Sydney's Central Local Court yesterday, included two war crimes against prisoners of war under article 122 of the Basic Criminal Code of Croatia and one war crime against civil population under Article 120 of the code. The offences carry a maximum penalty of 20 years' jail. The Croatian investigation into Mr Vasiljkovic's wartime activities - conducted by county prosecutors in the central Dalmatian town of Sibenik - began after The Australian tracked Mr Vasiljkovic, 51, to a Perth Serbian community centre, where he was teaching golf. The former commando had returned to Australia in December 2004, quietly resuming a life in Perth where his mother and brother live, after travelling between Belgrade, Africa and The Hague in the years following the 1991-95 Balkans war. Mr Vasiljkovic, who emigrated to Sydney as a boy and holds dual Australian-Serb citizenship, gave evidence in the trial of former dictator Slobodan Milosevic at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in The Hague in 2003. His lawyer told the Sydney court yesterday there was no evidence to justify Mr Vasiljkovic being held in jail. "There is not one factual statement here, even though his liberty has been taken away," Brad Slowgrove said. Australian Federal Police agents swooped on Mr Vasiljkovic's rented unit in the southwest Sydney suburb of Liverpool at 11.55pm on Thursday. He was listed as an international fugitive by Interpol earlier this month. Mr Vasiljkovic, who insisted last week he would only return to Croatia "as commander of a tank unit" and evidence against him "won't stand even in the pubs", sat impassively in the dock wearing a dark suit jacket and red shirt. Magistrate Allan Moore adjourned the matter to January 27, when Mr Vasiljkovic, who was refused bail, will appear by video link from prison. Additional reporting: David King, Peter Kogoy http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,17887448%255E601,00.html Serbian News Network - SNN [email protected] http://www.antic.org/
