DRAGAN VASILJKOVIC, AKA DANIEL SNEDDEN (CAPTAIN DRAGAN)

WANTED FOR RAPES OF BOSNIAK WOMEN IN PODRINJE, REGION AROUND SREBRENICA

PHOTO of Dragan Vasiljkovic, now known as Daniel Snedden, also known as Captain Dragan with a skull in his hand.

Dragan Vasiljkovic (aka: Daniel Snedden, aka Captain Dragan) participated in rapes of Bosnian Muslim women around Srebrenica, region of Podrinje. He was released from prison, because Australia refused to extradite him to Croatia for war crimes. Bosnia was unlikely to face similar problems because "Bosnia's court dealing with war crimes is staffed with international judges and prosecutors and it has received very high marks on the international level for its professionalism and impartiality."

BOSNIA TO SEEK EXTRADITION OF ACCUSED WAR CRIMINAL
By Selma Milovanovic, Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina

TWO weeks after the Federal Court stopped the extradition of an Australian citizen accused of war crimes to Croatia, ruling he could not have a fair trial, Bosnia is gathering evidence for a possible extradition request to that country over a wartime rape.

Dragan Vasiljkovic, 54, now known as Daniel Snedden, this month won an appeal before the full bench of the Federal Court against extradition to Croatia, where he is wanted for questioning over war crimes allegedly committed in Croatia in the early '90s.

Snedden is alleged, under the name of Captain Dragan, to have led a paramilitary unit that terrorised the local Croatian population and is alleged to have tortured prisoners of war in a medieval fortress near the town of Knin.

In evidence earlier this year before a defamation case Snedden has launched against The Australian newspaper, a Bosnian woman accused Snedden of repeatedly raping her in Zvornik, northern Bosnia, in 1992. [Editor: Zvornik is in north-eastern Bosnia, in Podrinje, very close to Srebrenica municipality]

The woman, who travelled to Sydney in April to testify in the NSW Supreme Court along with several Croatian men allegedly imprisoned and tortured by Snedden, identified him in court as the ''Captain Dragan'' who repeatedly raped her and watched as other soldiers did so.

The Bosnian ambassador to Australia, Damir Arnaut, last night told The Sunday Age in Sarajevo that gathering evidence against Snedden with a view to his possible extradition would be one of his top priorities. He said there was also strong evidence that ''Vasiljkovic operated with his paramilitary death squads in eastern Bosnia until at least 1994''.

Vasiljkovic has denied being in Bosnia during the war.

Mr Arnaut, currently a legal and constitutional affairs adviser in the Bosnian presidency, said that the Australian Federal Court had ruled Vasiljkovic could not have a fair trial in Croatia, Bosnia was unlikely to face similar problems.

''Bosnia's court dealing with war crimes is staffed with international judges and prosecutors and it has received very high marks on the international level for its professionalism and impartiality,'' Mr Arnaut said.

''As a result, I plan to work with Australian and Croatian authorities to collect evidence for forwarding to Bosnian prosecutors with hope that they will bring charges against Vasiljkovic and request his extradition to Bosnia."

A spokesman for the Bosnian Department of Public Prosecutions told Fairfax this week that while prosecutors had information about Snedden's alleged wartime activities in Bosnia and Herzegovina, he was not currently a suspect.

''We don't have a current investigation into his activites which does not mean it won't happen,'' the spokesman said.