CANADA TARGETS EX-PAT CITIZEN
Bosnian Croat accused of war crimes in 1993
OTTAWA • Canada’s immigration minister has started a court action to revoke citizenship from a man accused of Bosnian war crimes who was allowed into Canada in 1997 and granted citizenship in 2004.
The government alleges Bozo Jozepovic lied to immigration officials about his history in a Bosnian Croat militia, and says he was involved in a 1993 incident that saw Bosnian Muslims rounded up and detained in an elementary school basement. Seven Muslims were killed, partially burned and buried in a mass grave, according to court documents.
Jozepovic, 51, has a wife and two daughters and lives on the outskirts of Hamilton, Ont. Originally a coal miner in Bosnia, he appears to have spent most of his time in Canada working as a trucker. A person who answered the phone at his home said the family does not want to speak to the media.
Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen has filed an action in Federal Court seeking a judicial declaration that Jozepovic obtained his citizenship by making false statements about his background. If the judge grants it, Jozepovic’s Canadian citizenship is automatically revoked.
The government is also seeking to have Jozepovic declared inadmissible to Canada and deported on the grounds of having committed war crimes and crimes against humanity.
In a legal battle with the United States government 10 years ago, Jozepovic protested that he’s been wrongly accused in the incident. He had attempted multiple times to enter the U.S. to make a delivery for work, but was declared inadmissible at the border.
While voluntarily attending a 2007 hearing to clear his name, U.S. immigration authorities detained him and said they’d found evidence he’d participated in war crimes. An immigration judge permanently barred Jozepovic from entry.
“I still to this day think that hearing was garbage,” said Len Saunders, a U.S.based lawyer who represented Jozepovic in 2007. “And for them to be bringing this stuff up 10 years later, the Canadians, it’s ridiculous.”
Canadian court documents say Jozepovic applied for permanent residence at the embassy in Austria in 1997, and was granted refugee status. He arrived in Canada that November with his wife and two daughters, and first settled in Sherbrooke, Que. He was given citizenship seven years later.
But the government says Jozepovic told immigration officials that he had not served militarily in Bosnia after 1991, and had never been involved in any war crimes. Both claims were untrue, the government now alleges.
The government alleges Jozepovic directly participated in the illegal detention and mistreatment of the Bosnian Muslims in 1993, and “voluntarily made a significant and knowing contribution to” the murders of the seven men.
In the chaotic aftermath of the break-up of Yugoslavia in the early 1990s, ethnic factions of Bosnian Serbs, Croats and Muslims were all fighting each other. Jozepovic is alleged to have been a member of the Croat military group known as the HVO.
The murders took place in the Bosnian village of Poljani, identified in court documents as Jozepovic’s hometown. In June 1993, the HVO rounded up Muslims residents of Poljani and detained them in the basement of the village’s elementary school, which was being used as the HVO’s barracks.
The Canadian court document says Jozepovic helped round up the Muslim residents and “participated in beating at least one of those civilians.” It also says he attempted to learn the whereabouts of two of the men who were later found murdered.
In mid-June, the HVO was losing ground in the fighting and the prisoners were allowed to flee. On June 25, 1993, a mass grave was exhumed that found the bodies of six men, plus a seventh nearby, all Muslims.
“The defendant was seen with other HVO soldiers near the road” where the mass grave was discovered, the court documents say. “At that time, the smell of burning was apparent from the road.”