Interpol issues arrest warrant for alleged war criminal

BIRN

The international police organisation Interpol issued an arrest warrant for Zoran Adamovic, a former member of the Army of Republika Srpska (RS) whom Bosnia has indicted for war crimes.

According to prosecutors, Adamovic was, alongside other members of the Army of Republika Srpska, involved in the killing of four Bosniak civilians in Gornji Kamicak, the disappearance of another Bosniak civilian in Krasulje, as well as in the illegal detention, abuse and wounding of another Bosniak civilian in Donji Kamicak in the summer of 1992.

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The Prosecutor’s Office said Adamovic is a citizen of Serbia and that the indictment was submitted in January last year.

Regional countries usually do not extradite suspects whom Bosnia harged committing with war crimes. There are more than ten persons in Serbia currently whom Bosnia’s judiciary has either indicted or convicted of war crimes.

Among them is Novak Djukic, a former Republika Srpska Army commander who was sentenced for ordering artillery to bomb the town of Tuzla in 1995, which resulted in the ‘Tuzla Massacre’ which claimed than 70 lives.

He was sentenced to 25 years in prison but was released in 2014 after Bosnia’s Constitutional Court annulled the ruling due to procedural errors. Bosnia’s State Court reduced his sentence later that year to 20 years, but his lawyer informed the court a few days later that his client is in Serbia.

In October that year, Bosnia issued an arrest warrant for Djukic as he did not show up to serve his sentence. Bosnia then asked Serbia to extradite him.

The Higher Court in Belgrade postponed the hearing at which Serbia was to take over the case several times, the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN) reported.