Azra Basic, a Croatian woman wanted for war crimes she allegedly committed against Serbs during the 1992-95 war, was extradited from the US to Bosnia Herzegovina on Tuesday. A report from the Prosecutor’s Office of BiH [official website] stated [press release, in Bosnian] that Basic, 58, was transferred to Bosnian authorities at the Sarajevo airport. Basic is accused of killing one Serb civilian and torturing several others. Basic came to the US as a refugee in 1994, settled in Kentucky and became a naturalized US citizen. She was arrested in Kentucky in 2011 and challenged her extradition until a federal judge ruled [opinion, PDF] in April that she had to be sent to Bosnia for trial. The US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit [official website] denied Basic’s habeas corpus petition, and found that extradition was valid under the Treaty for the Mutual Extradition of Fugitives from Justice between the US and Serbia and a valid arrest warrant was issued by Bosnian authorities.

The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) [JURIST backgrounder] and the Balkan States continue to prosecute those accused of committing war crimes and crimes against humanity that left more than 100,000 people dead and millions displaced during the Balkan conflict of the 1990s. In October a Croatian prosecutor charged eight ex-Yugoslav military officers [JURIST report], including commander Borislav Djukic, with war crimes perpetrated during the Croatian War of Independence. In July Brazilian authorities arrested a man charged with committing war crimes in 1992 [JURIST report] against the civilian population of former Yugoslavia. The search for wanted criminal Nikola Ceranic began in late June after Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) authorities forwarded an extradition request to the Brazilian Justice Ministry and Supreme Court. In April a French court on ruled to extradite Radomir Susnjar [JURIST report], who is suspected of war crimes committed during Balkan conflict of the 1990s, to Sarajevo where he will face charges concerning his involvement.