Serb war criminal
Dragan Vasiljkovi?
(
Serbian Cyrillic
:
Драган Васи?кови?
; born 12 December 1954), nicknamed
Captain Dragan
(
Serbian
:
Капетан Драган
,
romanized
:
Kapetan Dragan
) is a convicted war criminal and former commander of a Serb paramilitary unit called the
Kninjas
during the
Yugoslav Wars
.
[1]
In 2005, prosecutors in
Croatia
accused him of committing war crimes during the wars. A warrant for his arrest was subsequently issued by
Interpol
.
He was arrested in Australia in January 2006,
[2]
and ordered to prison by the
High Court of Australia
in anticipation for extradition to Croatia to face prosecution for his alleged crimes.
[3]
[4]
He was extradited to Croatia on 8 July 2015 after losing his thirteenth appeal and sentenced to 15 years in prison on 26 September 2017 by the County Court in the city of
Split
.
[2]
Dragan was released from prison in March 2020 after serving his sentence.
Early life
[
edit
]
Dragan Vasiljkovi? was born on 12 December 1954 in a
Serbian Orthodox
family in
Belgrade
.
[5]
His father ?ivorad died in a motorcycle accident while Dragan was still young.
[5]
At the age of 3, his mother moved to Australia with her two children from a previous marriage, and Vasiljkovi? ended up in an orphanage and later a foster home.
[5]
At the age of thirteen he joined his mother and two siblings in Australia under the name Daniel Snedden.
[6]
As a juvenile, he ended up in trouble with the law several times. He was accused of
robbery
and selling stolen goods and later was charged with
forcing women into prostitution
.
[5]
At the suggestion of a judge, he joined the army. He spent 4 years in the
Australian Army
's reserve unit
4th/19th Prince of Wales's Light Horse
. After his military service, he served as a weapons instructor in Africa and South America. He was sailing around the world and stayed in Serbia in 1988 where he set up a boat and airplane charter business.
[7]
He was convicted of criminal charges in relation to brothel ownership in Elsternwick, a suburb of
Melbourne
, Australia during the 1980s.
[8]
He also worked as a golf instructor in Australia.
[9]
War in Croatia
[
edit
]
He returned to Belgrade in May 1990, as Croatia held
its first parliamentary elections
.
[10]
[11]
In Belgrade, Vasiljkovi? met Sa?a Medakovi?, one of the leaders of the barricades in Krajina following the
Log Revolution
in August.
[11]
Medakovi? was a friend of
Knin
chief of police
Milan Marti?
, and was an employee of Krajina state security. Vasiljkovi? visited Krajina in the autumn 1990.
[11]
There, he met Marti? and claimed that the defence of Krajina appeared "very disorganised".
[11]
He thus decided to help organise the Krajina defence. On his return to Belgrade, he attempted to gather support for his effort, and became a member of the opposition
Serbian Renewal Movement
.
[12]
He then returned to the United States to complete his aviator training.
[11]
During the
March 1991 Belgrade upheaval
when the Serbian Renewal Movement's challenge to the government was met with tanks in the streets, Vasiljkovi? was compelled to return there. Srba Milovanov introduced him to several
Serbian State Security
personnel, among them
Franko Simatovi?
.
[11]
Simatovi? told him of his Krajina-related activities that if his bosses were to learn about it, he would probably be arrested and dismissed.
[
citation needed
]
On 4 April, Vasiljkovi? went to Krajina to work for Marti?.
[13]
On 25 June 1991, Croatia proclaimed its independence; soon after, war broke out in Croatia. He served during the
Croatian War of Independence
under the newly created
Republic of Serbian Krajina
as a volunteer.
International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia
prosecutors claim that this service took place under Serbian police auspices, and media even reported that he claimed this during his testimony at the
trial of Slobodan Milo?evi?
in 2003.
[14]
He commanded special units known as Red Berets.
[15]
He trained units at Krajina's Golubi? training camp for which he was allegedly paid by the State Security Service of
Serbia
;
[16]
he denied this at the Milosevic trial, despite his role as a prosecution witness. He added that the only time that the Serbian State Security paid him was for a 28-day stint in 1997 "to monitor exercises"; his fee was 2,200 dinars.
[13]
He was allied with Interior Minister Milan Marti? in his power struggle with president
Milan Babi?
, whom he described as "dishonest, a man who was not of his word."
[17]
Marti?, in contrast, he considered to be "a man of honour and a man of his word."
[17]
In November 1991, Babi? called
Vojislav ?e?elj
to Knin to help him thwart what he believed to be a coup attempt being planned by Vasiljkovi? himself.
[18]
According to ?e?elj, "Captain Dragan interfered and started a rebellion among the army ranks", and organised a rally of military personnel. The rally, ?e?elj said, proved a failure and Babic remained in power.
[19]
?e?elj also testified at the Milosevic trial that Vasiljkovi? had a training camp in Golubic. During the war, he founded the Kapetan Dragan Fund aimed at helping victims of war.
[13]
Life in Serbia
[
edit
]
After the end of combat in
Croatia
and
Bosnia and Herzegovina
, Vasiljkovi? returned to Serbia where he lived for several years.
[7]
Vasiljkovi? was involved in the Serbian Renewal Movement.
[12]
He maintained his friendship with Franko Simatovi?, and in 2001 stated that he would defend him in court if necessary.
[20]
Simatovi? was arrested during by the
Serbian Police
and transferred to the ICTY in 2003.
[21]
Vasiljkovi? reemerged in the spotlight after he testified against
Slobodan Milo?evi?
in 2004 at the ICTY, and subsequently moved back to
Perth
, Western Australia.
[22]
Allegation
[
edit
]
In September 2005, an article in
The Australian
newspaper accused Vasiljkovi? of war crimes as a Serbian paramilitary commander between 1991 and 1994.
[9]
Vasiljkovi? made a short return to Serbia and held a press conference in Belgrade before returning to Australia.
[23]
He lodged a public defamation case against the publishing company
Nationwide News
for the article, but in December 2009 the court ruled against Vasiljkovi?, and ordered him to pay them $1.2 million.
[24]
Vasiljkovi? was arrested on the basis of a Croatian warrant in January.
[25]
He is accused by the Republic of Croatia of being responsible for soldiers under his command allegedly torturing, beating and killing captured members of
Croatian Army
and Police between June and July 1991 in a prison on the fortress in Knin,
[26]
and also for making plans to attack and take over the Glina Police station, a near city village Jukince and the villages
Gornji
and
Donji Vidu?evac
in February 1993 at
Benkovac
in agreement with the commander of the tank unit JNA.
[27]
It is alleged that during that, in violation of the
Geneva convention
, civil buildings were damaged and ruined, Croatian citizens' property was robbed and civilians were wounded and killed, including a German journalist,
Egon Scotland
.
[28]
Those accusations were made public after the newspaper
The Australian
reported a story about him.
[9]
Vasiljkovi? gave evidence during Milosevi?'s trial at the Hague in 2003 without immunity.
[14]
The ICTY named Vasiljkovi? as a "participant in a
joint criminal enterprise
" against Croats and other non-Serbs in the judgement against Marti?, but did not request his arrest.
[29]
All of the others named are either already on trial at the Hague or at large.
[30]
In 2005, ICTY spokesperson
Florence Hartmann
announced that Vasiljkovi? had been under investigation, but that it had stopped due to the mandate on the tribunal to finish its work.
[31]
Dragan subsequently sued
The Australian
for defamation.
[32]
In July 2007, the Supreme Court held that 6 out of 10 imputations in that article were defamatory.
[
citation needed
]
However, in December 2009, a judge ruled that Vasiljkovi? "committed torture and rape" and that
The Australian
article from 2005 proved that Vasiljkovi? participated and committed the allegations against him.
[14]
[33]
In December 2006, Vasiljkovi?'s bid to prevent his extradition hearing from going ahead failed in the Sydney Magistrates Court.
[34]
His grounds of defense were that as a Serbian Captain, he believed that he would be facing a biased Croatian Court and that no evidence of the allegations are required under the Extradition Act 1988,
[35]
for an Australian citizen to be extradited.
[34]
On 12 April 2007, authorities in Sydney granted Croatia's extradition request, with Vasiljkovi? being held pending appeal at
Parklea Correctional Centre
in its maximum security section on protection. By April 2007, the
Serbian community of Australia
had spent over $500,000 on Vasiljkovi?'s defence.
[36]
An application for bail pending an appeal to the
Federal Court of Australia
was dismissed.
[37]
On 3 February 2009, Vasiljkovi? appeal against extradition to Croatia was rejected by the Federal Court.
[38]
[39]
,
Among those coming to the defence of Vasiljkovi? was the
Serbian Orthodox
bishop of Australia and
New Zealand
, Irinej Dobrijevi?.
[40]
On 2 September 2009, Federal Court of Australia ruled that "there was a substantial or real chance of prejudice" if he was extradited to Croatia, ordering release, pending appeal.
[41]
[42]
He subsequently walked free from Parklea prison in Sydney's west on 4 September 2009.
[43]
The Australian government appealed the ruling, and in March 2010, the High Court of Australia overturned the Federal Court decision and ruled that Vasiljkovi? should be extradited to Croatia.
[34]
[44]
After the ruling, Vasiljkovi? was nowhere to be found, prompting the
Australian Federal Police
to launch a nationwide manhunt.
[45]
[46]
Final arrest and appeals
[
edit
]
Vasiljkovi? was captured by federal police in New South Wales on 12 May 2010, 43 days after his disappearance.
[47]
On 19 May, the Australian Court rejected Vasiljkovi?'s defence that Croatian courts would not give him a fair trial and that claims that Croatian courts had been more lenient towards Croats were "scanty" and "feeble".
[34]
[48]
[49]
On 16 November 2012, the
Australian Government
decided to extradite Vasiljkovi? to Croatia.
[50]
Vasiljkovi? challenged the decision to the Federal Court but was unsuccessful.
[51]
Vasiljkovi? appealed to the Full Court of the Federal Court, but on 12 December 2014 the Full Court rejected the appeal, clearing him for extradition to Croatia.
[52]
[53]
[54]
On 15 May 2015, the
High Court of Australia
refused Vasiljkovi? leave to appeal the December 2014 Federal Court ruling due to the unlikelihood of a successful outcome for him.
[55]
Following this decision, he had no remaining legal avenue to challenge his extradition.
[56]
On the morning of 8 July 2015, Australia surrendered Vasiljkovi? to Croatian police officers at
Sydney Airport
, his thirteen separate legal challenges against the extradition process having failed.
[2]
[57]
Upon arrival at
Zagreb International Airport
the following day, he was transferred by a high-security police motorcade to an isolated wing of a jail in
Split
.
[58]
Trial in Croatia
[
edit
]
At his first interview with prosecutors, he stated that he did not feel guilty of the war crimes that they allege he committed, and dismissed his state-appointed attorney.
[58]
In July 2016, he entered a formal plea of not guilty to unspecified war crimes,
[59]
and the trial commenced on 20 September 2016. In September 2017, Vasiljkovi? received a 15-year sentence by the Croatian court in Split.
[60]
Upon completion of his sentence, which included the time spent in detention in Australia, he was released from prison on 28 March 2020.
[61]
References
[
edit
]
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"The Real Captain Dragan"
.
Australian Broadcasting Corporation News
. 26 May 2011
. Retrieved
11 July
2015
.
- ^
a
b
c
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.
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- ^
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- ^
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.
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- ^
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"
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- ^
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- ^
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- ^
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- ^
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.
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- ^
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- ^
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- ^
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.
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.
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- ^
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- ^
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- ^
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.
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.
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- ^
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"
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- ^
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- ^
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,
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- ^
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- ^
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- ^
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,
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- ^
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.
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.
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.
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"
.
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.
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.
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.
Sources
[
edit
]
External links
[
edit
]