U.S. Extradites Former Bosnian Prison Guard over War Crimes

The United States extradited Thursday to Bosnia a former Muslim prison guard accused to have abused Serb civilian detainees during the 1992-1995 war, prosecutor's office said.

Almaz Nezirovic, one of rare Muslims to be indicted by Bosnia's prosecutors for war crimes, is suspected to have participated in "torture" of Serbs in a detention camp in the northern Bosnian region of Derventa between April and July 1992.

Nezirovic, 55, is accused of having "willfully caused great suffering and serious injury" to Serb civilians at the Rabic prison camp in 1992 when he served in the Croatian military and served as a guard there.

He tortured "at least 30 victims, including some minors," according to the prosecutor.

In 1997, two years after the war ended, Nezirovic sought to obtain refugee status in the United States.

In 2011 he was charged with illegally seeking to become a U.S. citizen as he allegedly lied on his application by failing to disclose his military service and that he had committed crimes outside the United States while serving in the Croatian military.

The inter-ethnic war in Bosnia claimed some 100,000 lives and more than two million refugees and displaced persons, almost a half of country's pre-war population.