Dragan Vasiljković

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Dragan Vasiljković (center) in Belgrade (2005)

Dragan Vasiljković ( Serbian - Cyrillic Драган Васиљковић ; * December 12, 1954 in Belgrade , Yugoslavia ), alias Daniel Snedden , fighting name Kapetan Dragan ("Captain Dragan"), was the commander of the so-called " Knindže ", a Serbian paramilitary unit under international law recognized Republic of Serbian Krajina during the Croatian War .

According to his own testimony before the ICTY , Vasiljković was sent to Croatia by the Milošević regime to support the resistance of the local Serb minority to Croatia's independence from Yugoslavia .

Vasiljković was arrested in Australia in 2006 , extradited to Croatia in 2015 and sentenced in 2018 to a prison term of 13.5 years, which he served as the remainder of the sentence until March 2020.

Career

Vasiljković, a Serb, emigrated to Australia in 1969 and acquired Australian citizenship. He was a military advisor in Tanzania and Angola and came to Knin (Croatia), where the majority of Serbs lived, as a Serb nationalist in 1990, when Croatia's aspirations for independence became apparent. Because he was traveling by ship, he gave himself the name " Kapetan Dragan ", Captain Dragan.

At the beginning of the Croatian War, he returned to Serbia in 1991 . From April 1991 Vasiljković was the commander of the paramilitary unit "Knindže", a special police unit ( Specijalne jedinice milicije - SJM) of the de facto regime of the Republic of Serbian Krajina . This approximately 1000-strong unit took part in attacks on the Croatian district of Zadar in 1990 and in the battle for Vukovar in 1991 . In the summer of 1991 he founded the humanitarian organization "Fonds Kapetan Dragan", which was supposed to support Serbian war victims, and in the same year ran for the office of Serbian president .

In February 1993 Vasiljković set up a training center for the SJM in Knin. Shortly before their defeat by Croatian troops in the military Operation Storm , the SJM Vasiljkovićs was in June 1995 to a brigade within the Special Forces - Corps of Serbian Krajina Army reshaped.

In 2004 he returned to Australia and lived under the code name Daniel Snedden as a golf instructor in Perth .

War Crimes Accusation

Vasiljković was wanted by Croatia for alleged war crimes, as he should have been involved in the ethnic cleansing in Croatia. He is also charged with rape in Zvornik ( Bosnia-Herzegovina ). Vasiljković is accused of torturing and killing members of the Croatian army captured in June and July 1991. Furthermore, several civilians and the German journalist Egon Scotland are said to have been killed in an attack on a Croatian police post in the city of Glina in July 1991, which Vasiljković personally led, and during the attack on the Croatian cities of Gornji Viduševac and Donji Viduševac . There was also arson and looting. According to the court ruling in Split, he was guilty of the death of Egon Scotland. Scotland was ambushed with a journalist colleague on July 26, 1991 near Jukinac and was fatally hit in the stomach by Serbian snipers.

Arrests and deportations

After an Australian journalist exposed him, Vasiljković was arrested on January 20, 2006 in Sydney on the basis of the Croatian arrest warrant . At that point it was not yet clear whether he would be extradited to Croatia , where he would be charged with alleged war crimes.

On February 3, 2009, Vasiljković lodged a complaint against extradition to Croatia, which, however, was rejected. September 2, 2009 an Australian court refused to extradite on the grounds in Croatia expect him not a just trial and released him on September 4 of that year against the payment of a deposit from the custody . At the end of March 2010, the Australian Supreme Court ruled that Vasiljković could be extradited to Croatia. He escaped a second arrest by fleeing for 40 days, before the hiding Vasiljković was arrested again on May 12, 2010 in Australia.

In November 2012, the Australian Minister of Justice decided that Vasiljković should be extradited to Croatia. Vasiljković denied the allegations made against him. His defense feared that there was no fair trial ahead of him.

After a nine-year legal battle, Vasiljković was extradited to Croatia on July 8, 2015.

Trial and imprisonment

On September 20, 2016, the trial began at the Split County Court . In September 2017 he was sentenced to 15 years in prison by the Split District Court. The judge Damir Romac said during the delivery of the verdict: "All witnesses described the dire conditions in the prison in the same way and as far as the guards are concerned, they described them as so-called kninjas". 60 witnesses were questioned; the files comprised 40,000 pages. Vasiljkovic had denied everything in court and described the process as politically motivated. According to the court in Split, the lack of insight was included in the judgment. In 2018, Vasiljković was sentenced to 13.5 years in prison for war crimes. Years of pre-trial detention in Croatia and Australia were credited to him. After serving his full sentence, he was released from prison on March 28, 2020 and deported to Serbia.

literature

  • Ivan Čolović: Brothel of Warriors: Folklore, Politics and War . fiber, Osnabrück 1994, ISBN 3-929759-08-X , Kapetan Dragan - The new Serbian war hero, p. 49–59 (Serbian: Bordel ratnika. Folklor, politika i rat . Belgrade 1993.).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Peter Imbusch : Peace and Conflict Research: An Introduction . 5th edition. VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, Wiesbaden 2010, p. 236 .
  2. ↑ a b c d e f g - ARD Studio Vienna: Court in Split also ruled on the death of journalist Egon Scotland | "Kapetan Dragan" convicted of war crimes. ( ard-wien.de [accessed on November 26, 2017]).
  3. ^ Nigel Thomas: The Yugoslav Wars (1): Slovenia & Croatia 1991-95 . Osprey Publishing Ltd., Oxford 2006, ISBN 978-1-84176-963-9 , p. 42.
  4. ↑ Deutsche Welle: "Kapetan Dragan" to Croatia , article from November 17, 2012
  5. ↑ Republic of Croatia v Snedden [2010 HCA 14]
  6. ↑ Tages-Anzeiger: "Serbian Warlord captured in Australia" article from May 14, 2010
  7. ↑ Vasiljkovic is delivered on n-tv.de, December 17, 2012, accessed on December 26, 2012
  8. ↑ 15 years imprisonment for Serbian rebel leader Dragan Vasiljkovic Deutsche Welle from September 26, 2017.
  9. ↑ derstandard.at: Serbian ex-militia leader convicted in Croatia released again
personal data
SURNAME Vasiljković, Dragan
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Kapetan Dragan, Daniel Snedder; Васиљковић, Драган (Serbian)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Serbian commander of the "Knindže" unit
DATE OF BIRTH December 12, 1954
PLACE OF BIRTH Belgrade , SR Serbia, Yugoslavia