An El Dorado for criminals
http://www.osservatoriobalcani.org/article/articleview/11428/1/44
Some countries belonging to Former Yugoslavia have become a paradise for criminals thanks to double (and triple) citizenships and the lack of extradition treaties. The path of mobsters and criminals to escape justice in the Balkans.
by Drago Hedl for Osservatorio Balcani e Caucaso - June 10, 2009
A Sarajevo rose (Photo: view-askew, Flickr)
Last May, Serbian police has arrested Željko Milovanović in Belgrade, suspected of having placed and activated the explosive that last 23rd October in Zagabria killed the Croatian journalist, Ivo Pukanić, and his marketing agent, Niko Franjić. Even tough Croatian police signed an arrest warrant, Milovanović will not receive it because, beside the Croatian citizenship, the man wanted for these murders owns the Serbian one too.
At the beginning of May, Branimir Glavaš has been sentenced by the Zagabria court for war crimes committed in Osijek in 1991 but, just a few days before the sentence was read, he has fled to Bosnia Herzegovina. However, although the Croatian police signed the warrant, Glavaš won’t be arrested because he also owns Bosnia Herzegovina’s citizenship. The constitution of this country protects its own citizens from being transferred to another country.
The former representative of the presidency of Bosnia Herzegovina, Ante Jelavić, after being sentenced as a criminal to 10 years of imprisonment in Bosnia, has fled to Croatia, where he lives as a free citizen, thanks to a Croatian citizenship that he owns together with the one from Bosnia Herzegovina.
Also Ognjen Šimić, a surgeon from Fiume sentenced last year to 9 years for corruption, has fled to Bosnia Herzegovina. He doesn’t have to worry about any imprisonment or transfer to Croatia because beside his Croatian citizenship, he owns one from Bosnia Herzegovina.
«Every criminal or murderer from Former Yugoslavia who cares to survive has obtained the citizenship from at least another country», said to the Observatory a high rank of the Serbian police after Milovanović’s arrest. «Milovanović owns three: Serbian, Croatian and Bosnia Herzegovina citizenships, so that he could commit crimes in two countries and hide in the third one».
Branimir Glavaš, accused of war crimes and at the moment a fugitive in Bosnia Herzegovina, fleeing from prison and the Croatian law, has proven clearly that double citizenship can be easily abused. When it was clear that Glavaš was going to prison, last October he asked and got the citizenship from Bosnia Herzegovina. Even though he was born in Osijek, Croatia, in 1956, and never lived a single day in Bosnia, he obtained the citizenship because his parents were born there. It is clear that he requested the citizenship only to avoid imprisonment in Croatia, but this doesn’t stop him from enjoying his freedom in Bosnia Herzegovina.
According to the data published by the Sarajevo newspaper Dnevni Avaz, there could be more than 40 people from Bosnia Herzegovina, with a Croatian citizenship, that have been investigated or sentenced in Bosnia in the last few years and that have fled to Croatia. The precise number of Croatians hiding in Bosnia is not known, beside the already mentioned Glavaš and the surgeon Simić, but it’s definitely not smaller. The last case concerns the controversial entrepreneur Blažo Petrović, who ran away to Bosnia Herzegovina (he already has its citizenship) when he learnt that he was to be arrested in Zagabria because he was accused of being involved in a crime.
«Some of the Croatian criminals that are now hiding in Bosnia, and those who hide in Croatia, and that during the war were strong supporters of the Herceg-Bosna (a state-controlled group supported by the Croatian president Franjo Tudjman) and of the union of Herzegovina with Croatia, are probably now very happy that their wishes didn’t come true. Otherwise they would not have a place to flee the law», said a Croatian politician.
The increasing number of criminals running to another country has become a problem for the republics born after the end of Former Yugoslavia. Some of these countries, Bosnia Herzegovina for instance, have a law that expects people with a double citizenship that committed a crime in a different country to serve their sentence in Bosnia only if they agree to it!
The States in this way become a safe harbour for criminals that know that they can steal, kill and commit any crimes and go unpunished.
«In September we will organize a summit in Belgrade with the Justice and Internal Affairs ministers of the whole region, so that we can solve the problem. Serbia won’t have to change its own constitution to allow the transfer of its citizens to other countries, because this disposition has been cancelled already, but other countries will have to. Nonetheless, not even Serbia can transfer its citizens until some new bilateral treaties will be signed with other countries of the region. This is why we will offer a multilateral treaty that, after constitutional changes in each country, could finally allow the transfer of criminals», said Slobodan Homen, an official at the ministry of Justice in Serbia.
Until that day, criminals can enjoy their freedom. It seems that it will stay this way for a long time, because changing the constitution is not easy, it takes a long time and most of all, it requires politicians’ commitment.
