‘WAR CRIMINAL’ IN MORRISONS
Grandad faces extradition over alleged attacks in Balkans war
HE looks like any unassuming grandad popping into Morrisons for a few groceries – but this shopper is a suspected Serbian war criminal fighting extradition from Britain.
Boro Marusic, 64, blended in with other customers as he went about his daily business.
Fellow shoppers had no idea he is alleged to have been part of a violent group led by warlord Slobodan Milosevic.
Since arriving in the UK in 1999, Marusic, who faces up to 20 years in jail if convicted, has held down jobs including as a car bodywork sprayer.
He faces trial for four wartime offences in Croatia in the 1990s under the Croat penal code.
Prosecutors claim he was involved in the abduction of a man while a member of a paramilitary group within the JNA, the former Yugoslavian military force.
The man was bundled into the back of a Mercedes in the village of Karanac in August 1991 before being taken to the home of an army commander, prosecutors allege, where they say Marusic and other soldiers beat him with rifle butts and threatened to kill him.
Marusic is also accused of being part of another JNA operation in November 1991, when nonserbs were allegedly forcibly evicted from their homes in the same village and told they would be shot if they refused.
Thousands of people were killed in Croatia by the Serb-dominated army after the country declared independence in 1991. Many of those responsible have escaped prosecution for decades because of the difficulties investigators have had accessing files.
The JNA’S figurehead, former Serbian president Milosevic, died in 2006 during a war crimes trial at the International Criminal Tribunal in the Hague.
A judge at the County Court in Osijek, Croatia, issued a warrant for Marusic’s arrest in November 2022 – 31 years after the alleged offences took place.
The National Crime Agency received the request for his capture and arrested him in January. Marusic is currently on £10,000 bail, must wear an electronic tag and must remain at his flat overnight. His Croat passport is being held by police as part of his bail conditions. Marusic, who lives on a quiet street in Bedford, has two grandchildren and describes himself as his wife’s full-time carer. He admits he was part of the Yugoslav army, but claims he is innocent of any wrongdoing. He said: “I deny all of the allegations. I was in the army because it was war. Everyone was, they had to be.” About the alleged abduction, he said: “I was not even there. “I was painting a tractor in the next village that day.” Marusic is set to fight extradition at a hearing at London’s Westminster magistrates court in July.
He added: “If the court system in Croatia was fair I wouldn’t mind being back to face trial, but it’s not fair. “People get forced to lie and say certain things. From 2005 until 2021 I went to Croatia every year. I don’t understand why this is happening now.”
‘‘ If the court system in Croatia was fair I wouldn’t mind being back to face trial, but it’s not fair – people have to lie