A 50-year-old man from Tucson, Arizona, was convicted of visa fraud and attempted unlawful procurement of citizenship on May 19.
Homeland Security Investigation launched an investigation in 2009 after receiving a roster of a police brigade suspected of many atrocities during the 1990s war in Bosnia and Herzegovina. One of the members of the brigade was Sinisa Djurdjic, who emigrated to Tucson in 2000, according to a May 30 news release.
The guilty verdicts came after a nine-day jury trial before U.S. District Judge Jennifer G. Zipps.
On several U.S. immigration applications, Djurdjic denied serving in foreign military and police units. But HSI’s investigation confirmed that Djurdjic was a member of the police brigade and other Bosnian-Serb military units.
HSI also discovered that Djurdjic harmed prisoners in his custody.
After several trips to Bosnia, interviewing witnesses, and collecting documentation from the Bosnian and Serbian government, agents discovered that Djurdjic was a prison guard at two prison camps.
These prison camps were established “by ‘Republika Srpska,’ the Bosnian-Serb entity which espoused the idea of ‘ethnic cleansing’ during the civil war and sought to exclude all Bosnian Muslims and Catholic Croats from certain areas within Bosnia,” according to the news release.
