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| Down Under |
| "Death Squad Commander' back in Australia |
| 2005-09-08 |
| AN ex-Australian army reservist who headed Serbian paramilitary units implicated in the wartime rape, torture and slaughter of Muslims in Bosnia has returned to Australia and is living in Perth. Dragan Vasilykovic, a Serb with Australian citizenship known as Captain Dragan, ran brothels in the Melbourne suburb of St Kilda before he travelled to his homeland in 1991 to fight in the inter-communal conflict in the Balkans. Between 1991 and 1994, Mr Vasilykovic commanded a number of paramilitary units alleged to have murdered hundreds of civilians and participated in the organised rape of women and girls. At the time, Mr Vasilykovic claimed he used the training methods of Australia's SAS forces to train up to 16,000 Serbian fighters. Despite his wartime activities, Mr Vasilykovic has recently returned to Australia, settling in Perth. According to Serbian newspapers, has been on a recruitment drive to Serbian clubs around the country, raising money for a Belgrade-based charity known as Fond Kapetan Dragan, or the Captain Dragan Fund. When contacted by The Australian in Perth yesterday, Mr Vasilykovic, who now goes by the name of Daniel Snedden, said he was "playing golf and basically just doing my own thing". Mr Vasilykovic rejected allegations that he was a war criminal as nothing more than "war propaganda". "I won't say I'm perfect, no, because nobody is perfect ... but I'm sure that I never killed a civilian, I'm sure I never killed a prisoner, I'm sure I never killed anybody that didn't have to be killed," he said. "I would like to answer any war crime question ... I would really love to see anyone come up with an accusation - I'm prepared to answer any question." Mr Vasilykovic said he mobilised Serbs for action during the Balkans war, and helped save many lives. He said he had appeared before the War Crimes Tribunal at The Hague, and answered questions for 18 hours, rejecting an offer of immunity. The 50-year-old has lived in Perth since December, and said he was enjoying being near his 76-year-old mother, and working as a golf teacher at the Serbian community centre in the southern Perth suburb of Maddington. But former deputy prosecutor to the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, Graham Blewitt, said Mr Vasilykovic should "without hesitation" be investigated by Australian authorities over the allegations of wartime atrocities levelled against him. "If they were Australian citizens who went overseas and participated in war crimes, and then came back, the Australian Federal Police have got the authority to investigate them for crimes under the Crimes Act (Foreign Excursions)," said Mr Blewitt, a New South Wales local court magistrate. "These guys who went overseas were mercenaries, and that is an offence under the Crimes Act." Mr Vasilykovic has been investigated by the Hague-based International Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, and a 1992 report by the tribunal's UN precursor found that one of the militia units he commanded, known as the Red Berets or the Draganovci, had terrorised the Muslim population in the Bosnian city of Zvornik before a mass expulsion. "The increasing terror caused by ... the newly arrived unit of one Kapetan Dragan was the preparatory stage for the ultimate forceful expulsion of the Muslim inhabitants of Zvornik," the report by a UN Commission of Experts said. The report says resident interviewed as part of the investigation had described Mr Vasilykovic as second in importance to Serbian warlord Zeljko Raznatovic, known as "Arkan", who was indicted by the International War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague before being gunned down in a Belgrade hotel in January, 2000. Mr Vasilykovic first came to notoriety in mid-1991 when his forces attacked the small town of Glina on the Croatia-Bosnia border. Footage broadcast on Croatian television showed the mutilated bodies of nine Croatian policemen. Mr Vasilykovic was quoted in a newspaper report after the incident as justifying the violence: "When the Croatian side uses hospitals or police stations in their villages as fortified positions, I'm sorry, I just have to massacre them." |
| Posted by:Oztralian [AKA] God Save The World |
| #3 Article: Footage broadcast on Croatian television showed the mutilated bodies of nine Croatian policemen. Mr Vasilykovic was quoted in a newspaper report after the incident as justifying the violence: "When the Croatian side uses hospitals or police stations in their villages as fortified positions, I'm sorry, I just have to massacre them." Note that these guys went after combatants. When are al Qaeda terrorists - who are going after civilians - going to be charged by the UN? |
| Posted by: Zhang Fei 2005-09-08 13:35 |
| #2 An olde friend of 'oris |
| Posted by: Throlulet Graviling7296 2005-09-08 08:37 |
| #1 Who's investigating war crimes again? Not Koffis' Krew™, I hope! |
| Posted by: Bobby 2005-09-08 08:31 |