Israel extradites alleged genocidaire to Bosnia
Alexander Cvetkovic said to have taken part in massacre of over 1,000 Muslim civilians during the Yugoslavian civil war
Adiv Sterman is a breaking news editor at The Times of Israel.
An Israeli citizen wanted by the Bosnian government for allegedly committing genocide in the former republic of Yugoslavia was flown out of Israel Thursday en route to the Balkan country, where he will be tried.
Aleksander Cvetkovic, who immigrated from Bosnia to the northern city of Carmiel in 2005, was indicted by Israeli courts in 2011 for allegedly participating in the July 1995 massacre of Srebrenica, a Bosnian Muslim town, during the country’s civil war.
Over 8,000 people were estimated to have been murdered by the Serbian army over three days of bloodshed.
The Bosnian government requested Cvetkovic’s extradition, accusing him of being part of a firing squad that shot more than 1,000 people.
According to testimony given by a comrade in his former unit, Cvetkovic proposed using automatic weapons in order to gun down civilians and speed up the killing.
He is to be tried in a Sarajevo court for war crimes and possibly genocide.
In 2012, the Israeli Supreme Court ruled that Cvetkovic would be handed over to Bosnian authorities. The decision to extradite Cvetkovic was not a confirmation of his guilt, the three-judge panel stressed.
Cvetkovic was the first and only Israeli to be extradited to another country for allegedly committing genocide.
Aaron Kalman contributed to this report.
