The High Court in the Serbian city of Sabac has ruled that conditions have been met for the extradition of wartime mayor of the southern Bosnian town of Trebinje, Bozidar Vucurevic, both to Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, spokesman for the court Slobodan Velisavljevic said on Thursday.
It is now up to Serbia's Justice Minister Snezana Malovic to decide whether Vucurevic, a war crimes suspect, will be extradited and to which country he will be handed over, the spokesman said.
Vucurevic, who was arrested at a Serbian-Bosnian border crossing in early April and was placed in custody after a hearing before the High Court in Sabac, has the right to appeal the Sabac court's ruling. His detention has been extended for two months.
Croatia wants this Bosnian Serb politician for his role in the shelling of the southern coastal city of Dubrovnik during the 1991-1995 war. In 2008, the Dubrovnik County Prosecutor's Office indicted him for war crimes against civilians and the destruction of cultural monuments.
The Bosnian Prosecutor's Office said the proposal for handing the war time mayor of Trebinje back to Bosnia was based on the fact that Bosnia too had launched an investigation against Vucurevic for crimes committed in the municipality of Trebinje. Another reason is that Vucurevic is a Bosnian citizen, the Prosecutor's Office said, adding that the Bosnian Serb wartime mayor of Trebinje should be tried before Bosnian judicial bodies.
The Prosecutor's Office did not state exactly what Vucurevic was charged with, but the media reported earlier that the Mostar Canton Prosecutor's Office launched an investigation against him in 2003.
Vucurevic and his wartime associates are suspected on command and direct responsibility of the persecution of more than 5,500 Bosniaks from Trebinje and of killing at least 17 people and torturing 86 people of whom four succumbed to the wounds.
