Ganic Extradition Hearings Draw to Close

However, Ganic’s defence team does not expect the decision on Serbia’s request for his extradition to be delivered soon.

“It is very unlikely that we will get a decision for at least a week – possibly two,” defence attorney Stephen Gentle told Balkan Insight on the last day of the hearings.

The ruling is expected to be delivered on July 27.

Ganic was arrested on March 1 in London on an arrest warrant from Serbia, where he is considered a suspect in a war crime case. Serbia has requested his extradition to face trial in Belgrade.

Serbia suspects Ganic of war crimes related to his alleged involvement in an attack on a convoy of the Yugoslav People’s Army, JNA, as it was leaving Sarajevo on May 3, 1992. The Serbian prosecution claims that 18 soldiers were killed and 22 wounded in the attack, but the number is contested.

Ejup Ganic was the head of the Bosnian Presidency for 48 hours at the time of the incident, taking the place of the late Alija Izetbegovic who had been kidnapped by the JNA and was being held hostage.

Ganic’s defence team claims that the extradition request is politically motivated, a claim that that was echoed by Christian Schwarz-Schilling, a former High Representative in Bosnia who also testified as a witness in the Ganic hearings.

Over the two weeks of hearings, the court heard a number of witnesses from both sides, including politicians, human rights activists, and prosecutors.

James Lewis, who is representing the British prosecution which is on behalf of Serbia, argued that Ganic ordered attacks on a column of soldiers, on a military ambulance and on an officers’ club of the JNA.  

The prosecution invited Serbian deputy war crimes prosecutor Milan Petrovic to testify as a witness at the hearings. Petrovic claimed that Ganic, if extradited, would face a fair trial since the court is “objective and independent”.

According to the BBC, Petrovic said that there is no political influence over the court in Belgrade, claims the defence dismissed. The defence said that they can cite NGOs from Serbia who question the court’s independence.

Serbia submitted to the court in London some 200 pages of documentation and two video tapes, claming that the documentation included new evidence about Ganic.

For its part the defence called a number of witnesses, including the former international prosecutor in the Office of the Prosecutor in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Philippe Alcock.

During his 2005-2009 mandate, Alcock led the investigation into the incident for which Ganic is accused in Serbia. According to Alcock, no evidence of crimes committed by Ganic was found during his investigation. Alcock also said that Serbia’s actions against Ganic are politically motivated.

Bosnia is still investigating the May 1992 incident, and Ganic is considered as one of the suspects.

The defence also called Damir Arnaut, a legal advisor to Haris Silajdzic, who is the Bosniak member of the Presidency. According to the AFP news agency, Arnaut said that after Ganic’s arrest he had been involved in Turkish-mediated discussions between Bosnia and Serbia in an attempt to hammer out a deal involving Ganic.

This would have involved “Serbia allowing Ganic to face trial in Bosnia, in exchange for Bosnia not criticising a statement by Serbia’s parliament about the Srebrenica massacre of 1995”.

The Serbian parliament adopted a declaration in March that condemns the crime in Srebrenica but does not call it genocide.

A representative from the Turkish embassy in the UK has followed the hearings in London since Ganic was arrested on March 1. 

During the hearings, Ejup Ganic gave an interview for The Sunday Telegraph saying that he fears being murdered in a Serbian prison if a British court sends him to Belgrade to face war crimes charges.

“If I go to a Belgrade prison I would be hanged, it would look like an accident or they would stage some kind of ‘suicide’,” Ganic said.