A man accused of commanding a police squad that rounded up Bosnian Muslims for slaughter in 1995 fashioned a new life in Las Vegas as a modest grocery store owner before being arrested and deported to his native country, his lawyer and U.S. officials say.
Dejan Radojkovic arrived Thursday in Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina, after an overnight commercial airline flight from Las Vegas accompanied by federal agents, Bosnian authorities and U.S. immigration officials said.
Radojkovic's lawyer in Las Vegas, Don Chairez, denied there was any evidence linking the 61-year-old man â€" a permanent U.S. resident and father of two â€" with the execution of Muslim boys and men in an event considered Europe's bloodiest mass killing since World War II.
"He is not a war criminal," Chairez told The Associated Press. "There is no evidence that Mr. Radojkovic ever killed anybody."
Prosecutors allege Radojkovic commanded a special police brigade that rounded up about 200 Muslim men in July 1995 in the Konjevic Polje region for execution, according to a statement from U.S. immigration officials.
Chairez said Radojkovic's national guard unit accepted the surrender of about 200 enemy soldiers and turned them over to Bosnian Serb forces. Chairez said Radojkovic didn't know the men would be killed.
AP
In this photo provided by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, former Bosnian-Serb police commander tied to Srebrenica genocide Dejan Radojkovic, 61, arrives at McCarran Airport in Las Vegas, for the initial leg of his removal flight back to Sarajevo. The former Bosnian Serb police commander accused of playing a leading role in the 1995 massacre of Bosnian Muslims in Srebrenica has been deported to his native country, U.S. officials said Thursday May 24, 2012. (AP Photo/U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement)
Close Radojkovic was arrested in January 2009 for failing to disclose his wartime history when he entered the U.S., said Nicole Navas, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokeswoman in Washington, D.C.
Documents identify him as an ethnic Serbian refugee. An immigration judge in late 2009 ordered him deported on multiple grounds, finding that he ordered or participated in "extrajudicial killing."
Court documents show Radojkovic was accused of failing to report that he had been a squad commander in the Republika Srpska Special Police Squad.
U.S. and Bosnian authorities said Radojkovic was handed over to police at the Sarajevo airport for prosecution based on evidence collected by investigators from the ICE Human Rights Violators and War Crimes Center, the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia at The Hague and prosecutors from Bosnia-Herzegovina.
"He's wanted on genocide charges," Navas said.
Prosecutors in Bosnia expressed "gratitude to the institutions of the United States for helping locate and extradite the suspect." They said he is suspected of committing crimes against humanity, but that no charges have been filed yet.
"For the families who lost loved ones at Srebrenica, justice has been a long time coming," Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director John Morton said in a statement announcing Radojkovic's deportation. "But they can take consolation in the fact that those responsible for this tragedy are now being held accountable."
Morton promised to ensure the U.S. "does not serve as a haven for human rights violators and others who have committed heinous acts."
The Immigration and Customs chief also pointed to the January 2010 deportation to Bosnia-Herzegovina of Nedjo Ikonic, a Milwaukee, Wis., resident identified as another former special police commander linked to the Srebrenica massacre.
Ikonic was Radojkovic's police commander, Navas said.
沒有留言:
張貼留言