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20 Years After Srebrenica Massacre, Quest For Justice Can Be Murky

Vitomir2.JPG
Jude Joffe-Block
Vitomir Spiric in his home in Phoenix.

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20 Years After Srebrenica Massacre,Quest For Justice Can Be Murky

20 Years After Srebrenica Massacre,Quest For Justice Can Be Murky

Jude Joffe-Block

Vitomir Spiric in his home in Phoenix.

Twenty years have passed since Bosnian Serb forces killed more than 8,000 Muslim men and boys near Srebrenica in Eastern Bosnia during the Bosnian War, but many of the perpetrators have not yet been brought to justice.

The events in Srebrenica are widely considered to be a genocide by many in the international community, though a United Nations resolution to formally designate it as such was vetoed on Wednesday by Russia.

Some of those who carried out the massacre managed to legally immigrate here to the U.S. and start new lives. In response, U.S. immigration officials are moving to deport Bosnian immigrants suspected of human rights violations. 

“The United States is not going to serve as a shelter or a long term residence option for people who have participated in or committed these kinds of crimes internationally, no matter where they’ve happened,” said Jennifer Elzea, a spokeswoman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement. “Not just in the Balkans region but around the world.”

But the initiative is also raising questions about who should be held accountable.

While these efforts have identified and deported some Bosnian immigrants who were later convicted of war crimes in Bosnian courts, some argue immigration officials are casting too wide a net to also include low level conscripts in the militia whose involvement in war crimes are less clear cut. 

MORE: Bosnian Refugees In Phoenix Grapple With Memories Of War

Among those who are facing deportation is 43-year-old Vitomir Spiric, a Bosnian Serb who immigrated to Phoenix 18 years ago with his wife and young daughter.

Eighteen years ago, Spiric and his wife and young daughter arrived in Phoenix to start over after they were displaced by the Bosnian war. The U.S. government awarded the family refugee status.

“We are start to live nice life,” said Spiric, who is now 43, during an interview at his Phoenix home. His English is still limited. “Nice life, everything is nice, everything is perfect. We find a good job.”

He managed the bakery at an Albertson’s supermarket. The family began to put memories of the war behind them. And there were many painful memories.

When Spiric was 20, mounting ethnic tensions forced him to flee his hometown of Zenica in Bosnia. He remembers seeing a spray-painted sign.

“It say this is a Muslim country,” Spiric said. “Serbs and Croatians, you must leave.”

It was 1992. Spiric said he was at a Red Cross shelter when recruiters from the Bosnian Serb militia picked him and other men up and forced them into service.

He said he didn’t believe in fighting Muslims, and didn’t see the point. He felt he’d already lost everything.

Spiric said he tried to run away a half dozen times. But the militia had police that would search for deserters. Spiric said they kept finding him and dragging him back.

A few years later Spiric made it to Serbia. After the war ended, he sought help with the International Organization for Migration in Belgrade to apply for refugee status to come to the US.

He didn’t disclose his time in the Bosnian Serb militia on the application form, which inquires about previous military service. His application was approved.

Spiric and his family settled into their new life in Phoenix. Then about a decade ago, U.S. immigration officials discovered his name on the militia’s rosters.

That’s when Spiric’s American dream came crashing down.

The government prosecuted Spiric for making a false statement on his immigration form and put him in deportation proceedings.

According to the U.S. government, Spiric is a suspected war criminal who may have helped the Bosnian Serb militia carry out the Srebrenica massacre — allegations Spiric denies.

“You know, that is too hard,” Spiric said. “That is too hard because when they say you guilty for something you not did.”

Spiric insists he wasn’t involved in Srebrenica. He said he never killed anyone in the war and wasn’t even issued a gun.

Jennifer Elzea, the ICE spokeswoman, said it is typical for accused war criminals to deny they were involved in human rights violations.

“To be charged with a human rights violation or to be found to be a part of it doesn’t mean that you had to pull the trigger,” Elzea said.

Elzea said participation in a war crime can also mean standing guard, conducting searches or driving prisoners into areas where killing was taking place.

“There are many people who unfortunately have to participate in something like the sad events in Srebrenica,” Elzea said.

The agency has initiated deportation proceedings against about 150 Bosnian immigrants suspected of war crimes.

But in these deportation cases the government just has to prove to an immigration judge that someone is deportable, not that the person is actually guilty of participating in a war crime. Failing to disclose service with the Bosnian Serb militia can be considered immigration fraud and is often enough grounds for deportation alone.

“Prosecuting someone accused of war crimes or torture for immigration fraud is a little bit like charging Al Capone with tax evasion,” said Scott Gilmore, an attorney with the Center for Justice and Accountability, a human rights organization in San Francisco. “It is easier to prove.”

Gilmore said it is a valuable tool for going after human rights abusers who have found refuge in the U.S.

“But the problem for society is that the truth does not entirely come out,” Gilmore said.

Immigration attorney Chris Brelje argues some of these deportation efforts against Bosnians are unfair.

Jude Joffe-Block

Immigration attorney Chris Brelje with a map of Bosnia in his law office.

He chose to represent 18 Bosnian Serbs he believes did nothing wrong in the war, including Vitomir Spiric. Fourteen of those clients live in Phoenix and four live in Las Vegas.

Brelje said all of them have similar stories.

“They were ethnically cleansed by Muslims from Muslim dominated areas,” Brelje said. “There was ethnic cleansing on all sides. They are refugees who are now being punished for something they didn’t do. And they are being labeled as war criminals. I guess that is the part that is particularly distressing to me.”

Brelje acknowledges in some other deportation cases against Bosnian Serbs, the US did present solid evidence the defendants had participated in war crimes.

“I am 100 percent behind removing people from the United States who committed war crimes, who participated in persecution,” Brelje said.

“On the other hand, we shouldn’t let the enormity of what happened there, cloud our vision so that we can’t discriminate between those who actually did commit the war crimes and others who have very clear and consistent and credible stories about where they were and what had happened to them.”

But Elzea said ICE only pursues deportation in these types of cases when there is, “verifiable evidence or information or witness statement that says [the defendant] participated in or substantially assisted with human rights violations.”

ICE wouldn’t comment on individual cases. But according to court documents in Spiric’s deportation case, the government’s main evidence that Spiric may have been involved in the Srebrenica massacre is that his name is listed on the July 1995 roster for the militia’s First Infantry Battalion, Fifth Infantry Company of the Braturnac Light Infantry Brigade.

The government asserts that is one of the units that assisted with the Srebrenica massacre during several days in July.

But Spiric said he wasn’t even fighting that summer.

Spiric said he was institutionalized in a mental hospital after a nervous breakdown and had no clue about the mass killing.

His lawyers argue the militia’s roster confirms Spiric was on sick leave all summer. They said a small letter "b " that appeared next to Spiric’s name on the May through August rosters stood for the Serbian word "bolestan ," which means sick.

An immigration judge’s opinion did not rule out the possibility that Spiric’s account could be true.

But the judge concluded Spiric should be deported. The judge found that not only had Spiric failed to disclose his time in the militia but he also misrepresented when he fled Bosnia.

Harvard Law School professor Alex Whiting said these deportation cases are necessary to uphold the integrity of the U.S. refugee system.

“People do not have a right to come into the country and fail to disclose relevant pertinent information that is required to them,” Whiting said.

Spiric said he was just following the advice of the refugee caseworker so his application to the US would be accepted. He said the International Organization on Migration caseworker filled out the application and he signed it.

Spiric will be sent back to Bosnia unless he can convince the immigration judge in a future hearing that deportation will cause too much harm to his son, who is a U.S. citizen.

As he waits for resolution in his deportation case, Spiric wonders how he’ll ever clear his name from the stigma of being associated with Srebrenica.

He said feels this deportation case has left him labeled as a war criminal, even though he was never tried or convicted of committing a war crime.

Jude Joffe-Block was a senior field correspondent at KJZZ from 2010 to 2017.