BELGRADE, Serbia — Serbia said Tuesday it will demand quick extradition of a prominent former Bosniak leader arrested in London on war crimes charges, further straining relations between the Balkan wartime foes. The arrest Monday of ex-Bosnian deputy President Ejup Ganic added to ethnic tensions in the region, coinciding as it did with the closely watched trial of wartime Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic at a U.N. war crimes tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands.
Serbian Justice Minister Snezana Malovic said Ganic, who was detained by British police at London’s Heathrow airport on a Serbian warrant, is suspected of ordering the killing of more than 40 Yugoslav army soldiers retreating from Sarajevo at the beginning of the 1992-1995 Bosnian war.
She said Serbia’s extradition demand is being prepared and will include charges that Ganic committed war crimes against "the wounded and sick, unlawful killing and use of illegal combat means."
In Sarajevo, Bosniak presidency member Haris Silajdzic said Ganic’s arrest undermines Bosnia’s sovereignty and amounts to Serbia seeking to discredit the country’s "legitimate defense" against Serb aggression during the war.
"This is not the first attempt to relativize and set equal blame," he said. "There will be more, but we will fight to defend the rights of our citizens and the dignity of our resistance to the aggression that was launched on Bosnia."
Belgrade backed the Bosnian Serbs in their war against the Muslim-led Bosnian government after it declared independence from Yugoslavia in 1992. Serb troops kept Sarajevo under siege throughout the war that killed about 100,000 people and left millions homeless. The war ended in a U.S.-brokered peace deal in 1995.
Karadzic, defending himself against charges of Europe’s worst genocide since the Holocaust, has told judges he was not the barbarian depicted by U.N. prosecutors, but was protecting the Serbs against a fundamentalist Muslim plot of which Ganic was a part.
Bosniaks — Bosnian Muslims —are generally considered the main victims of the hostilities, although Russia and other Orthodox Christian nations back the Serbs in their portrayal of wartime events.
Bosnia claims Serbia is trying to portray Bosniaks as being at least partially guilty for the war by issuing an arrest warrant against one of their prominent wartime leaders. Officials say they are angry at London for cooperating with Belgrade in the arrest.
Damir Arnaut, who heads a legal team that traveled to London on Tuesday to represent Ganic, said Bosnia is considering filing international arrest warrants against unidentified Serbian officials.
"All options are on the table now … we are considering countermeasures against Serbia and this will greatly affect our relations," Arnaut said shortly before boarding a plane to London.
He said Bosnia has secured 200,000 pounds ($299,441; €220,390) in bail funds for Ganic.
"Bail has been secured and so he will be released very shortly," Arnaut told the Associated Press in Sarajevo.
Serbia’s initial arrest warrant for Ganic and 18 others was issued to Interpol in November. It was believed the move was designed to appease nationalists angered because Serbian war crimes courts have passed severe sentences on Serbs accused of committing war crimes in Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo.
