Kemal Mrndzic, the former supervisor of the notorious Celebici Bosnian prison camp where Serbs were held and tortured during the bloody breakup of the former Yugoslavia, has been arrested in Boston for allegedly using false claims of persecution to obtain refugee status and citizenship in the United States.
The UN International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) established that the guards at the Celebici camp were guilty of the murder, rape, and torture of Serbian prisoners held there.
U.S. prosecutors said on May 17 that Mrndzic was interviewed by ICTY investigators in Sarajevo after the 1992-1995 Bosnian War and accused him of being involved in crimes committed at Celebici.
According to the lawsuit, a number of survivors have identified Mrndzic as being involved in the beatings and other abuses against those forced into the camp.
Three other Celebici guards were convicted by The Hague tribunal where survivors testified about their treatment in the camp.
According to court documents, after the end of the war, ICTY investigators spoke with Mrndzic in Sarajevo and allegedly accused him of being involved in abuses at Celebici.
U.S. prosecutors said Mrndzic escaped Bosnia through Croatia and obtained refugee status in the United States in 1999 and then U.S. citizenship, falsely claiming he was taken prisoner and tortured by Serb forces and was fearing revenge upon return.
At the time of his arrest, he was living in the town of Swampscott, just outside of Boston, the U.S. Department of Justice said.
He has now been charged with falsifying, concealing, and covering up a material fact from the U.S. government and other crimes.
Mrndzic was released on bail after his first appearance in federal court on May 17.
Using a fraudulently obtained passport and falsely obtained certificate of naturalization in the United States is punishable by up to 10 years in prison.
The ICTY has established that up to 240 ethnic Serbs from the southern Bosnian town of Konjic and the surrounding villages were imprisoned at Celebici.
They were tortured and abused, and some of them were killed from May 1992 to May 1993 as part of a wide and systematic attack on the Serbian civilian population in the area by Bosnian Muslim and Croat forces.