Croatia Upholds Jailing of Bosnia Prison Fugitive
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The district court in Zadar on Monday accepted the Bosnian verdict sentencing Ilijasevic, alias Como, to 15 years in prison, but because the fugitive Croat ex-fighter is set to appeal, he cannot be sent to serve his jail term yet before the new verdict is handed down.
Announcing the appeal, Ilijasevic’s attorney Branimir Zorica said that the ex-fighter has almost eight years of his prison sentence left to serve.
Last September, Ilijasevic fled to the Croatian island of Vir while on leave from prison in Mostar. He cannot be extradited to Bosnia and Herzegovina because he is Croatian citizen.
Ilijasevic, a former member of the Maturica special unit of the Croatian Defence Council, was sentenced to 14 years in prison in 2008 for war crimes in the Vares and Kiseljak municipalities, including the murders of civilians in an attack on the village of Stupni Do.
Bosnian Croat forces took control of Stupni Do in central Bosnia in October 1993 and massacred most of the Bosniaks that they captured. The confirmed number of victims is at least 35.
A year after this conviction, Ilijasevic was also jailed for four and a half years for a murder in Kiseljak, committed during the war, and the court in Novi Travnik ruled that he should serve 15 years in prison in total.
