Bosnia Seeks Arrest of Convicted Serb Ex-Policeman

Mico Jurisic. Photo: BIRN BiH

The Bosnian state court said on Monday that it has given the order for an international arrest warrant for Mico Jurisic, who was convicted of committing crimes against humanity against non-Serb civilians in the Prijedor area in 1992.

“The Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina received information that convict Mico Jurisic had failed to come to serve his imprisonment sentence, after which it ordered an international arrest warrant to be issued for the convict,” the court said in a statement.

Lawyer Svetozar Davidovic, who defended Jurisic in his trial at the state court, said he had neither spoken with his client nor seen him for a long period of time.

“It is known to me that several months ago he received an invitation to serve his sentence and requested a postponement, but the request was rejected,” Davidovic said.

Jurisic was found guilty in November 2019 of participating in the murders of two Bosniaks in the village of Carakovo in the Prijedor area, as well as the killings of two others.

He was also convicted of trying to kill a group of Bosniak and Roma civilians by shooting at them while they were running away, as well as inhumane treatment and putting a knife to a five-year-old girl’s throat.

The verdict said Jurisic committed the crime within a widespread and systematic attack by the Bosnian Serb Army and police force against the non-Serb population in villages around Prijedor.

Jurisic is one of several war crimes convicts who are believed to have fled Bosnia and Herzegovina to avoid serving their sentences. Many have dual citizenship of Bosnia and Herzegovina and either Serbia or Croatia.

The most high-profile case is that of wartime Bosnian Serb wartime general Novak Djukic, who was sentenced to 20 years in prison for ordering an attack on the city of Tuzla that killed over 70 people in 1995, but left the country for Serbia.