BALKANS: An Argentinian Connection Surfaces

By Vesna Peric Zimonjic Reprint | | Print |

Vesna Peric Zimonjic

BELGRADE, Aug 9 2005 (IPS) - Milan Lukic, a top Serb war crimes suspect accused of committing atrocities in the 1992-95 Bosnian conflict was arrested in Argentina last night, Serbian authorities confirmed Tuesday.

“The arrest came as the result of intensive operative activities by our and international security services,” Rasim Ljajic, the Serbian official dealing with the International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague in the Netherlands said.

“The search for Lukic lasted nine months and I expect him to be extradited directly to the ICTY,” Ljajic told reporters in Belgrade.

Lukic was indicted by the ICTY for the abduction and execution of Muslims in eastern Bosnia.

The indictment says Lukic had imposed a “reign of terror” in the eastern town Visegrad and its surroundings. He went into hiding in the late 90s and his whereabouts were unknown until Monday.

Few details have surfaced in Serbia on the arrest. It is known only that Lukic was arrested in the posh Recoletta neighbourhood of Buenos Aires, and is being held in a local police station. He is believed to have told neighbours that he was a South African businessman.

The ICTY indictment says Lukic formed a paramilitary group ‘Avengers’ in 1992 that committed a number of atrocities against Muslims.

The most infamous is the ‘Sjeverin Case’ involving the abduction of 17 Muslims in the eastern Bosnian village Sjeverin in October 1992. The Muslims were all tortured for days and later killed. Their bodies were thrown into the Drina river that marks the border between Bosnia and Serbia.

A Belgrade court sentenced Lukic in absentia to 20 years in jail for this crime only weeks ago.

The indictment says Lukic and his group also forced civilians into homes which they set ablaze, killing at least 140 people, including women, children and elderly men in June 1992.

The ICTY welcomed the arrest. “We heard the news on Lukic’s arrest and we greatly appreciate the work of the Argentine police,” Florence Hartmann, spokeswoman for the ICTY chief prosecutor told Serbian media.

Lukic is the second Serb war crimes suspect to be arrested in Argentina this year. Three months ago the Argentine police arrested Nebojsa Minic, accused of the execution of at least six members of a family of ethnic Albanians in the southern Serbian province Kosovo in 1999.

He was arrested in the western Argentine town Mendoza after a tip from Human Rights Watch. His wartime nickname was ‘Death’ and he was member of the paramilitary unit ‘Lightning’. The unit under his command operated in Pec town in Kosovo.

Minic was known to have terrorised local ethnic Albanians, promising that “none of them will remain alive.” The family members were killed in June 1999. That was soon after the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) ended its three months of bombing of Serbia due to Serb repression against ethnic Albanians.

Minic entered Argentina in September 2003 from Chile and settled in Mendoza, carrying false passports in the name of Goran Petrovic and Vlada Radivojevic. He opened a chain of pizzerias in the town and lived a quiet life.

Argentina offered a tempting retreat because it is one of few countries that citizens of Serbia and Montenegro can enter without a visa.

“With their accumulated wealth, they were very self-confident and felt safe and secure in the country (Argentina) that is half a world away, yet with a way of life that resembles ours,” an official said.

Argentina was known to have provided shelter to members of the Nazi puppet Croatian regime Ustashi after World War II, but was not known before these arrests to have been home to wanted Serbs.