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Ganic Ordered Into Custody Until Eventual Extradition

Ejup Ganic

02 March 2010  

Ejup Ganic has been ordered into one-month custody in Great Britain. He can be released on bail by paying 200,000 pounds, but he still must not leave the country.

In the meantime the Serbian authorities are due to submit the necessary documents confirming grounds for suspicion that Ganic participated in an attack on the Yugoslav National Army, JNA, convoy in Dobrovoljacka street in Sarajevo in May 1992.  

On the basis of these documents, the Westminster Magistrates Court will consider his extradition.  

Ejup Ganic, former member of the wartime Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina, was briefly held at London Airport on February 27, 2010. He was arrested on March 1. The British Foreign and Commonwealth Office explained that Ganic was arrested on the basis of "a preliminary request submitted by the Serbian authorities".  

"As a signatory of the European Convention on Extradition, Serbia filed a preliminary arrest warrant. After that, the police authorities arrested Ejup Ganic," the Foreign Office said, adding that the Westminster Court ordered Ganic into custody, which may last until March 29 this year.

The Prosecution of Bosnia and Herzegovina said it would submit documents "as soon as possible" and ask for Ganic's extradition to Bosnia and Herzegovina, because the Bosnian State Prosecution is also conducting an investigation of the Dobrovoljacka street incident.

"The Prosecution of Bosnia and Herzegovina considers that it has exclusive authority to try war crimes of which Bosnian citizens are suspected and which were committed in Bosnia and Herzegovina," Boris Grubesic, Spokesperson of the State Prosecution, said.

The Agreement on Mutual execution of Decisions in Criminal Cases, signed by the Justice Ministers of Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina on February 26, confirms that Bosnia and Herzegovina is competent to process war crimes in Ganic?s case.  

"The country where most evidence is held and the country whose citizenship a suspect has is competent to process the suspect. When we apply these stipulations to Ganic's case, we can see that Bosnia and Herzegovina is competent in this case. Serbia misused the signed agreement," Jusuf Halilagic, Secretary of the State Ministry of Justice, said.

"There is no red warrant against Ganic. Ganic must have been arrested on the basis of an agreement signed by the United Kingdom and the Kingdom of Serbia in 1901," Halilagic said.

At the beginning of last year the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Serbia issued warrants against 19 individuals from Bosnia and Herzegovina, including Ejup Ganic, on suspicion that they participated in the attack on the JNA convoy in Dobrovoljacka street.

The JNA convoy was withdrawing towards the military barracks in Lukavica via Dobrovoljacka street on May 3, 1992. Alija Izetbegovic, the then President of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina, who had been kidnapped by the JNA at Sarajevo Airport the day before, was held in the first armoured transporter.

As per an agreement, the President was supposed to be released after the convoy had safely passed through the city. However, the convoy was interrupted in the afternoon hours and a certain number of soldiers were killed.