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US extradites Serbian war crimes suspect to Bosnia

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

[JURIST] The US Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on Tuesday removed accused Bosnian civil war criminal Marko Boskic to Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH). Boskic will stand trial in Sarajevo for his role in the Srebrenica massacre in 1995, where 1,200 unarmed prisoners of war were killed. Boskic was first arrested in the US in 2004, when immigration officials charged him with fraud and misuse of a visa for not reporting his foreign military service. During his imprisonment on those immigration-related charges, ICE worked with the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) to investigate Boskic's alleged role at Srebrenica. Depending on the severity of Boskic's role, he will be tried either in the ICTY or the BiH war crimes court. Last week, the BiH war crimes court convicted two individuals, Radomir Vukovic and Zoran Tomic, for their roles in the Srebrenica massacre, sentencing each to 31 years in prison. In March, the court indicted a former Serbian police commander, Nedjo Ikonic, for his alleged role at Srebrenica. The BiH war crimes court was originally formed in 2005 to relieve the caseload of the ICTY, and retains jurisdiction over crimes considered to be of a lower level, while the ICTY hears high-level cases, such as those involving Radovan Karadzic. The BiH war crimes court handed down its first decision in 2008.

Full post as published by JURIST - The Paper Chase on April 29, 2010 (boomark / email).