CROATIA: Bosnian Croat Ivica Rajic, who is wanted by the United Nations war crimes tribunal for alleged atrocities against Muslim civilians during the war in Bosnia, has been arrested in Zagreb, his lawyer told the HINA news agency yesterday.
Rajic was detained on Saturday on an arrest warrant issued by the UN war crimes tribunal and was being held at the Zagreb county court investigation centre, Mr Zeljko Olujic said.
The court ordered that Rajic, the wartime commander of a Bosnian Croat militia, remain in detention for three months pending his extradition to UN tribunal in The Hague.
"Right now I do not know if the defence will agree to extradition or if we will start a legal battle here in Croatia," Mr Olujic said.
The interior ministry said in a statement that a man wanted by the UN war crimes court had been arrested. It identified the detainee as 45-year-old I.R., in a clear reference to Rajic. The man did not resist arrest, the ministry said without elaborating.
The UN war crimes tribunal indicted Rajic in 1995 for war crimes against Bosnian Muslim civilians in October 1993, during Bosnia's 1992-95 war.
At the time Rajic commanded units of the Bosnian Croat armed forces known as the Croatian Defence Council, who attacked and razed the village of Stupni Do in central Bosnia, killing nearly 40 of its residents.
Bosnian Croats and Muslims, although allies against Bosnian Serbs during most of the 1992-95 war, fought each others for 11 months during the conflict.