Serbia's Ambassador to Australia Miroljub Petrovic has confirmed to SBS that the Serbian Justice Minister Nikola Selaković wrote to Minister Michael Keenan following the Federal Court’s dismissal in December of Daniel Snedden’s most recent appeal against extradition.
The 60-year-old Perth man is wanted by Croatia in connection with war crimes allegedly committed during the 1990s Croatian war, including the torture and killing of non-Serb prisoners and civilians.
At the time Snedden was commanding a Serbian paramilitary unit on occupied Croatian territory and went by the name of Dragan Vasiljkovic, or Captain Dragan.
Mr Snedden was born in Belgrade, Serbia, and also holds Serbian citizenship.
According to Serbian news site B-92 the letter states that “Serbia fears that criminal proceedings that would be conducted against him in Croatia would not be supported by adequate and sustainable evidence.”
The correspondence reportedly goes on to say that “the judicial authorities of Serbia are prepared to conduct criminal proceedings against Vasiljkovic.”
B92 writes: “…as stated in the letter, the extradition of Vasiljkovic would cause 'reactions' of the Serb community in Australia, and upset the public in Serbia.”
This is reportedly the third time the Serbian government has appealed to Australian authorities not to go ahead with Mr Snedden's extradition to Croatia.
Mr Snedden denies all the allegations against him, and has been fighting extradition in Australian courts for eight years.
In 2010 he evaded Australian Federal Police for around seven weeks, and has since been detained in extradition custody in Sydney’s Parklea prison.
The federal government has approved Croatia’s request for Mr Snedden’s extradition, and in December the full bench of the Federal Court found that he had been accorded appropriate procedural fairness in the making of the former Justice Minister Jason Clare’s decision to surrender him to Croatia.
The Attorney General’s Department says it is open to Mr Snedden to seek leave to appeal the decision to the High Court.
Mr Snedden’s lawyer Dan Mori has not confirmed whether this will be his client's next course of action.
In the years following the 1990s Balkan conflicts Daniel Snedden was a witness for the prosecution in the trial of the late Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague, but was never indicted.
In 2009, Mr Snedden was unsuccessful in a defamation case raised against The Australian newspaper, which published an article detailing alleged crimes committed by him during the Balkans conflicts.
This is Australia's longest running war crimes extradition case, and if Mr Snedden is sent to Croatia he will become the first Australian citizen extradited over war crimes.
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