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Bosnia court refuses to extradite former Croatia lawmaker convicted of war crimes

By Bernard Hibbitts (editor) and University of Pittsburgh School of Law students.

[JURIST] A Bosnian state court on Tuesday refused to extradite former Croatian parliament deputy Branimir Glavas to Croatia to serve a sentence for war crimes. Glavas, who holds dual Bosnian and Croatian citizenship, fled to Bosnia to avoid serving his sentence for killing Serbs during the Croatian conflict from 1991-1994. Glavas was convicted in May in the Zagreb County court and sentenced to 10 years in prison for ordering the torture and death of Croatian Serbs in the town of Osijek in 1991, a charge he denied. Shortly after fleeing Croatia in an effort to avoid the sentence, Glavas was arrested on an Interpol warrant in Bosnia. Bosnia and Herzegovnia is not a party to any international extradition agreement, and, since Glavas is a Bosnian citizen, the court did not find it within its jurisdiction to release him. In January 2008, Glavas was stripped of his parliamentary immunity so that lawyers could proceed with his prosecution in Croatia. Glavas is a former prominent member of the ruling Croatian Democratic Union, and was re-elected to office under the new parliament during the Croatia's November 2007 elections. Glavas has maintained his innocence and even staged a 40-day hunger strike in 2006 when he was detained after the criminal investigation against him initially opened. He also faces another war crimes investigation in Zagreb for the murder of two Serbs in a separate incident in Osijek.

Full post as published by JURIST - The Paper Chase on June 24, 2009 (boomark / email).