[JURIST] New York resident Sulejman Mujagic has been extradited to his native country of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) for war crimes committed in the 1990s, officials said Monday. His extradition [AP report] is the result of charges for allegedly killing and torturing enemy soldiers during the Bosnian War [JURIST news archive]. Mujagic was fighting for the Army of the Autonomous Province of Western Bosnia when he and his men allegedly killed an enemy combatant with an AK-47, as well as kicked and beat enemy combatants with rifle stocks. At a detention hearing in December, Mujagic denied all charges and claimed that an individual in BiH was tortured until he or she produced the allegations against him.

The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the BiH war crimes court [official websites] have continued to prosecute those accused of atrocities during the Balkans conflict of the early 1990s. Last month the ICTY acquitted two former Serbian secret police officials of charges of war crimes and also convicted [JURIST reports] six Bosnian Croat political and military leaders for persecuting, expelling and murdering Muslims during the Bosnian War. These represent the most recent convictions against individuals responsible for human rights abuses during the Bosnian Civil War, which left approximately 100,000 people dead and about 2.2 million homeless. The ICTY marked its twentieth anniversary [JURIST report] last month. The BiH war crimes court was established in 2002.