(Transcript from SBS World News Radio)
The Australian government is being accused of providing safe haven for war criminals.
The comments come amid revelations of extradition proceedings against a Bosnian man living in the Australian Capital Territory.
Sacha Payne reports.
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A Bosnian man who is believed to have lived in Australia since the late 1990s is facing extradition, amidst claims he was involved in war crimes in the former Yugoslavia.
39 year old Krunoslav Bonic remains in custody in the ACT after a brief appearance in the Magistrates Court.
The federal Attorney General's Department has confirmed a 39 year old man has been arrested in the ACT, in response to an extradition request from Bosnia and Herzegovina in March 2014.
It says the man is wanted to face prosecution in Bosnia on a war crimes charge.
Australian author Mark Aarons has a long history of investigating war crimes.
He says Krunoslav Bonic is well known to authorities.
"This man has been very prominently mentioned at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia that has been operating in the Hague for almost 20 years now as somebody who participated in crimes against humanity and war crimes, and it's obviously been known for some time that he's been in Australia. What is a mystery is why it hasn't taken the Bosnian government so long to launch this extradition request and why the Australian government who must have known that he is here in Australia has taken no action against him themselves."
Witnesses have previously told the International Criminal Tribunal in the Hague that Mr Bonic was involved in beatings and interrogations in central Bosnia during the conflict.
It is alleged he was later captured with the ears of dead soldiers in a bag.
One witness told the trubunal Mr Bonic moved to Australia at the end of the conflict.
However, Mr Bonic's lawyer reportedly claims his client was himself tortured and imprisoned in the former Yugoslavia, and is fighting extradition.
Dr Gideon Boas is an Associate Professor in Law at Melbourne's Monash University.
He believes now there is a bilateral treaty between Australia and Bosnia, the extradition process is likely to be successful.
"Certainly Bonic's name has come up in the context of the Yugoslav war crimes Tribunal and no doubt there will be the provision of information and potential evidence from the Yugoslav war crimes Tribunal. Bosnia does have a trusted system capable of delivering a fair trial to a person like Mr Bonic and I would have thought it's eminently likely to be successful."
A spokesman for the Bosnian Embassy in Canberra says he has no knowledge of the extradition request.
Mark Aarons says he finds that hard to believe.
"That would be extraordinary, that would be a complete puzzle as to why the diplomats who represent the country would be in the dark."
Gideon Boas says the case demonstrates the low priority Australian authorities give to alleged war crimes.
Dr Boas says there hasn't been a specialised war crimes unit in Australia since the 1990s.
And he says very little action has been taken by Australian authorities to investigate or prosecute alleged war crimes
"There's anecdotal evidence that there's anything up to several thousand people ranging over a variety of conflicts, with people who have emigrated from those conflicts who have, or may have, committed war crimes or other human rights violations and there doesn't seem to be desire on part of the Australian authorities and hasn't been for some time, to do anything serious about that."
Dr Boas says Australia's failure to vigorously pursue war crimes cases puts it at odds with other developed countries.
He says the United States, Canada, and many European countries all have legislation which allows them to prosecute such cases in situ, requiring no extradition.
"It sends a message that Australia is not a country that's serious about ending or at least dinting impunity for the commission of mass atrocity and gross violation of human rights. It's not enough to simply say that, "These crimes were committed in other countries at a different time and place, there are legislative, legal and policy difficulties that are associated with them, so we'll just stick our head in the sand and do nothing," I think it behoves Australia, given our resources and given our desire to participate internationally to take a seat at the UN Security Council, it behoves Australia to do something about this problem."
Mr Bonic is expected to make a bail application next month.
