Bosnian Croat Ex-Fighter Faces Extradition after Arrest in US

Robert Kovacic, a former member of the Croatian Defence Council wanted for war crimes, was arrested last month in the United States on a warrant issued by Bosnia and Herzegovina, and is now awaiting an extradition hearing in a US court in July.

Kovacic, now 66, was arrested in Roanoke, Virginia on May 16. He is currently in custody in the US and his extradition is pending.

According to US court documents seen by BIRN, Kovacic was born in Jajce, where the crime was allegedly committed, and is an ethnic Croat.

He is charged with war crimes against civilians, which carries a prison sentence of up to 20 years, and of violating articles of the Geneva Convention that deal with the treatment of civilians during wartime.

According to Kovacić's arrest affidavit, Croatian Defence Council, HVO soldiers came to the apartment of a civilian Bosniak woman, after the Bosnian Croat wartime force took control of Jajce in 1995.

They ordered her to cook for them, harassed her and insulted her ethnicity. Kovacic later came to her apartment and was initially kind to her, and the woman prepared food for him and his dog.

The woman was afraid for her safety in HVO-controlled Jajce, and asked Kovacic to help protect her. He told her to go to the apartment he was squatting in.

When she arrived at the apartment, Kovacic forced her to drink brandy, and after she refused, insulted her based on her ethnicity, forced her to take her clothes off and sexually assaulted her.

According to the affidavit, Kovacic then told her that he would "kill her and throw her into the garbage and blame the Serbs for her murder".

The woman was able to flee from the apartment and hid overnight in a burned-out house. The next morning, she went to a police station...

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