Bosnia's Ganic Extradition Bid Under Scrutiny

Rachel Irwin

Senior Reporter

Saturday, 20 March, 2010

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Bosnia’s attempt to extradite former Bosnian presidency member Ejup Ganic from Britain may founder because of a legal shortcoming, experts warn.

Arrested on March 1 at Heathrow airport at Serbia’s request, Ganic was granted bail on March 11 by London’s High Court and ordered to remain at an undisclosed location until his next court appearance, expected to be later this month.

Ganic’s arrest provoked protests from Bosnian Muslims in both Sarajevo and London and Serbia has denied accusations that the charges against Ganic were politically motivated.

Immediately after his arrest, the prosecutor’s office in Bosnia and Hercegovina submitted a request to Britain for Ganic to be extradited back to Bosnia, in connection with a May 1992 incident in Sarajevo, known as the Dobrovoljacka (Volunteer’s Street) incident.

Serbia is also seeking to extradite Ganic to stand trial for charges related to the episode.

At the time, Ganic was a member of the Bosnian presidency, effectively serving as a deputy to then president Alija Izetbegovic.

A day before the incident, on May 2, 1992, Izetbegovic was kidnapped by the Yugoslav army, JNA, at Sarajevo airport when he returned from peace negotiations in Lisbon.

On May 3, a deal was done under which Izetbegovic would be released and a JNA column would be allowed out of the besieged city by the Bosnian Muslims, but subsequently the column was fired upon. Belgrade says 42 soldiers were killed, and blames Ganic, who was effectively in charge while Izetbegovic was being detained.

According to Boris Grubesic, spokesman for the prosecutor’s office in Sarajevo, Bosnia’s extradition request was based on the fact that a Bosnian court has been investigating Ganic and other individuals since October 2006; the evidence is in Bosnia; and that Ganic is a citizen and resident there.

However, lawyers say that according to British law, the existence of an investigation is not a sufficient reason to request extradition.

“The problem is that in order to be extradited, you’re supposed to be wanted for prosecution, not investigation,” said Anand Doobay, an extradition expert at Peters and Peters law firm in London.

Paul Troop, a lawyer at Tooks Chambers in London, agreed. “If there’s an investigation going on, that’s not going to be enough,” he said. “Bosnia is going to have to come clean about what its position is in relation to the investigation and whether or not they have any evidence against Ganic.”

Grubesic told IWPR that his office has not yet heard back from Britain regarding the extradition request. However, he said that if the Bosnian court was asked for further details on the investigation, they would “provide it in accordance to the relevant laws that regulate this matter”.

Ganic, now president of Sarajevo’s School of Science and Technology, was arrested after attending a degree ceremony at the University of Buckingham, with which his school has links.

The situation has been further complicated by remarks made by Serbian president Boris Tadic last weekend, in which he appeared to suggest that he wouldn’t stand in the way of Ganic being returned to Bosnia if he were brought to trial there.

“Serbia would like to believe that the judicial institutions of Bosnia and Hercegovina are capable of providing a fair and honest trial,” Tanjug news agency quoted the president as saying.

In additional remarks to IWPR, a spokewoman for Serbia’s prosecutor’s office, Jasna Sarcevic–Jankovic, reiterated the president’s sentiments.

“What we consider important is that those responsible for the Dobrovoljacka incident be brought to justice,” she said.

“On the other hand, it is of paramount importance to the Serbian [prosecutor’s office] that relations among the countries in the region – including [Bosnia] – should be normalised, and that war crimes prosecutions should lead to a reconciliation between our two states and peoples.”

However, the Serbian justice ministry – which submitted a full extradition request to Britain on March 10 – told IWPR that despite the president’s remarks, there are no plans to withdraw the request.

“The ministry will not withdraw the request for extradition of Mr Ganic,” Milica Bogdanovic, a spokeswoman at the ministry, said, adding that the matter is now in the hands of the British courts.

Some observers say that President Tadic’s comments could indicate a hesitancy to try Ganic in Serbia.

“I’m not sure Serbia really wants him,” said Florian Bieber, a political scientist and lecturer in eastern European politics at the University of Kent. “If Ganic was tried in Bosnia … [then] Serbia could claim a success and say, ‘Well, if we hadn’t pushed for it, nothing would have happened in Bosnia.’

“The risk is much lower than having him tried in Serbia when things might go wrong. If [Serbia] doesn’t have a water-tight case, just imagine the fallout regionally. It would make Serbia look extremely bad and jeopardise all judicial cooperation in the region.”

The Ganic case has already highlighted the inherent difficulties with judicial cooperation and parallel investigations.

Sarcevic-Jankovic said that the Serbian prosecutor’s office began examining files related to the Dobrovoljacka case in 2006, after the military court was dissolved. Around that time, she continued, the Serbian prosecutor “assisted and provided logistical support” to the deputy prosecutor in Bosnia in collecting evidence related to the case.

“We thought at the time that the prosecutor’s office [in Bosnia] would open this case, but we have never been informed that it did so,” she said.

Grubesic, of the prosecutor’s office in Sarajevo, declined to comment on whether they notified Belgrade when the investigation began.

That both Serbia and Bosnia were apparently investigating the case at the same time is indicative of a broader problem, observers say.

“There’s still really no effective institutional cooperation between the Serbian office and the Bosnian office [of the prosecutor],” said Marko Prelec, senior analyst for the International Crisis Group.

“There’s been attempts to institutionalise a process that would essentially divide cases between the two of them, so they wouldn’t end up duplicating efforts and getting in each other’s way, but that hasn’t really worked out, I think partly because of mistrust on both sides.”

In terms of what happens next, lawyers say that Bosnia can assist Ganic in challenging the extradition in other ways, such as providing materials to support the arguments his lawyers make in court.

Along those lines, Doobay said, Ganic and his lawyers can raise bars to extradition, which could include arguing that his human rights might be violated if he is extradited to Serbia.

Prelec, of the ICG, also pointed out that recently the Australian supreme court “overturned a lower court’s decision to extradite one of their nationals of Serbian origin to Croatia, on the grounds that they believed he wouldn’t get a fair trial [there]”.

If judges decide that Ganic should be extradited to Serbia, he can appeal against the decision, and the process could stretch on for quite some time.

Rachel Irwin is an IWPR reporter in The Hague.