An Australian man accused of war crimes by the Croatian government is fighting his extradition, and fighting for the right to defend his innocence before an independent legal system.
Daniel Snedden, also known as Captain Dragan, was a high profile Serbian commander who is considered a Serbian folk hero.
Snedden was imprisoned for 3.5 years in Sydney’s Parklea jail while appealing extradition to Croatia, the land of his former adversary. Snedden is wanted in Croatia for alleged war crimes during the dismemberment of the former Yugoslavia in the early 1990s.
In 2005, a front-page article in The Australian accusing Snedden of war crimes in Bosnia triggered a chain of events. Snedden filed a defamation case against News Ltd. for the article, which a jury found to be defamatory in 2007. The Croatian government issued an extradition request and at the discretion of the then-Attorney General Phillip Ruddock, Snedden was arrested in 2006 and imprisoned without formal charges and without the ability to prove his innocence.
Australia’s “no evidence” law prohibits Snedden from providing evidence against the accusations. However, he was able to appeal his extradition based on the grounds that he would receive an unfair trial should he be extradited to Croatia.
“I believe there would be a show trial with thousands of witnesses who would swear on their mothers’ graves that I did all kinds of things. … I would be found guilty and suffer all kinds of tortures,” Snedden told The Epoch Times.
In 2009, Snedden won his appeal and the federal court ordered his release. The Croatian government then appealed the release. The case will be heard in Canberra on March 29.
In 2001, Snedden gave evidence for two weeks against Slobodan Milosevic at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.
According to Australia’s “no evidence” model of extradition, a country seeking extradition does not need to provide any evidence of guilt, nor can the accused provide evidence of their innocence.
Daniel Snedden, also known as Captain Dragan, was a high profile Serbian commander who is considered a Serbian folk hero.
Snedden was imprisoned for 3.5 years in Sydney’s Parklea jail while appealing extradition to Croatia, the land of his former adversary. Snedden is wanted in Croatia for alleged war crimes during the dismemberment of the former Yugoslavia in the early 1990s.
In 2005, a front-page article in The Australian accusing Snedden of war crimes in Bosnia triggered a chain of events. Snedden filed a defamation case against News Ltd. for the article, which a jury found to be defamatory in 2007. The Croatian government issued an extradition request and at the discretion of the then-Attorney General Phillip Ruddock, Snedden was arrested in 2006 and imprisoned without formal charges and without the ability to prove his innocence.
Australia’s “no evidence” law prohibits Snedden from providing evidence against the accusations. However, he was able to appeal his extradition based on the grounds that he would receive an unfair trial should he be extradited to Croatia.
“I believe there would be a show trial with thousands of witnesses who would swear on their mothers’ graves that I did all kinds of things. … I would be found guilty and suffer all kinds of tortures,” Snedden told The Epoch Times.
In 2009, Snedden won his appeal and the federal court ordered his release. The Croatian government then appealed the release. The case will be heard in Canberra on March 29.
In 2001, Snedden gave evidence for two weeks against Slobodan Milosevic at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.
Australia’s ‘no evidence’ Legal System
According to Australia’s “no evidence” model of extradition, a country seeking extradition does not need to provide any evidence of guilt, nor can the accused provide evidence of their innocence.
During the 2006 court hearing, Snedden’s lawyers argued that the law breaches Australia’s Constitution. The High Court, however, ruled otherwise.
Only one High Court judge, Justice Kirby, had a dissenting opinion, saying extradition should not be possible “until, lawfully, a judge had considered the evidence.” Extradition detention as it stands he said, is “offensive to the Australian Constitution.”
In situations like Snedden’s imprisonment, Justice Michael Kirby says it is punishing for crimes for which the court has seen no evidence.
“[To] deprive him of his liberty for an extended period of time; remand him without bail, confine him during the entire process to a general prison, house him with convicted offenders, and contemplate sending him to a foreign country without ever affording him substantive access to the independent courts of Australia was a course of action that must be characterized as punitive.”
Professor Emeritus Ivan Shearer says he sees no benefit to the law. In a submission on the review of Australia’s Extradition Law and Practice in 2006, Shearer wrote that under the system, if Australian authorities reject an extradition request, it puts the government in the position of having to explain the decision to an “angry foreign government.”
Moreover, Shearer argues, “since many other countries don’t allow their own citizens to be extradited, the law offered no reciprocal benefit to Australia.”
Croatia is one of the countries that prohibits the extradition of its citizens to any other country.
Captain Dragan
Snedden came to Australia with his mother from Belgrade in the former Yugoslavia when he was 14 as Dragan Vasiljkovic. He returned to Yugoslavia in the early 1990s achieving celebrity status after circumnavigating the world on a yacht and later chartering flights for Yugoslavia’s rich and famous.
During the civil war in the former Yugoslavia, he rose to become a high profile commander and Serbian hero, known as Captain Dragan. At the end of 1991, he established the Captain Dragan Foundation, a humanitarian fund providing aid to war victims and one of the largest nongovernment organizations in Eastern Europe. He also ran for the presidency against Slobodan Milosevic.
Selma, a Muslim woman who came to Australia as a refugee in 1998 after the war, told The Epoch Times: “I was a single mum, a Muslim; I moved in the village named Bruska [in Croatia]; there were six or seven families of Croatian people. One kilometer (0.62 miles) from us was the camp where he [Captain Dragan] stayed. Soldiers came at that time and we were frightened. He gave the soldiers an order that they were not to hurt us.
“He helped us with the food and protected us. We didn’t have anything for food or clothes. I asked for help and met him, and he ordered the man in charge to give us food and clothes. He was a really kind and good person who would help everyone. He was really good for me and those Croatian families. I know when we left they were all still alive.”
Snedden has never been formally accused or charged with war crimes. Evidence to support his innocence and character cannot be put before an Australian court.
Snedden’s hero status and support from the Serbian community has helped secure his freedom thus far, but the upcoming appeal may decide his future based solely on how the court feels he might be treated by the Croatian government.
For other Australians facing extradition without such public support, there is still little hope that they would be given the right to defend their innocence during a fair trial.
