Croatia wants the United States to return a convicted war criminal jailed in a Union County federal prison.
The Eastern European country's government has asked the United States to extradite Jugoslav Vidic to Croatia to face sentencing for committing a crime against humanity during the early 1990s war between Serbians and Croatians.
Witnesses testified Vidic, an ethnic Serbian, chopped off a Croatian man’s arm at the elbow in 1991, according to the extradition petition. The man, Stjepan Komes, died.
In Vidic’s eyes, Komes’ crime was shaking hands with Croatia’s president, according to a federal indictment.
Vidic, a former member of the Serbian army’s elite Red Berets who fought Croatia’s army, fled to the United States and was convicted in Croatia in absentia in 1998.
Assistant U.S. Attorney William A. Behe filed a request to extradite Vidic on March 7. He cited an extradition treaty between the U.S. and Croatia, which formally asked for Vidic’s return.
Vidic, 57, is in custody at the United States federal prison in Allenwood because he pleaded guilty in December 2023 to immigration fraud in the United States and was sentenced to three years in prison.
Vidic lied to immigration officials several times, according to a January 2023 federal indictment filed in northern Ohio.
Background on the conflict
Croatia and Serbia, both former republics of Yugoslavia, became separate countries after they declared their independence in 1991. That happened after the former Soviet Union fell apart and its member states went their own way.
Croatia declared its independence June 25, 1991, and formed its own army, but so did Serbians living in areas of Croatia they controlled. Divic joined the Serbian Army of Krajina.
Fighting broke out in the Petrinja area of Croatia. In late August 1991, Croatian President Franjo Tudjman visited Petrinja and spoke to residents on the streets.
“One of these residents was Stjepan Komes, who worked at the Gavrilovic meat-processing factory in Petrinja,” the indictment says. “Television news coverage of the visit showed Tudjman shaking Komes’ hand.”
On Sept. 16, 1991, the Serbian Army attacked Petrinja and seized the meat-processing plant.
“Ethnic Serb soldiers singled out Komes from a group of employees who were being detained by the soldiers in the factory and escorted him away at gunpoint,” the indictment says. “Komes was never seen alive again.”
Brutal attack detailed
The indictment does not detail how Komes died, but the extradition request does.
Dressed in a camouflage uniform, Vidic, who worked at the meat-processing factory before the war, entered the factory with other soldiers.
Vidic separated men from women and forced the women to go upstairs, where they had to undress to their underwear and endured unspecified verbal abuse.
Vidic also brought Komes upstairs an brutally attacked him in front of the women.
“Vidic then used a sharp iron object to sever Komes’ arm at the elbow while members of the (Serbian army) held Komes down,” the request says. “While mutilating Komes, Vidic scolded him for shaking hands with ... Tudjman.”
Soldiers “dumped Komes and his severed arm onto a military transport and left the factory.”
“As a result of his injury and inadequate medical care, Komes died,” the request says.
Legal proceedings, refugee status
In 1994, authorities in Sisak County, Croatia, charged Vidic with committing a war crime for killing Komes. The war ended in 1995 with Croatia defeating the Serbians in Croatia.
On July 30, 1996, authorities exhumed a mass grave around Petrinja and found Komes’ body, which his children identified. A doctor who testified at Vidic’s 1998 trial said Komes would have died with “a few dozen minutes.” Witnesses to Komes’ execution said they recognized Vidic because he didn’t wear a mask.
On Dec. 4, 1998, Vidic was convicted, but he wasn’t at the trial.
By 1999, he had fled to Romania and sought refugee status in the United States.
On Sept. 17, 1999, he told a U.S. immigration officer his only military experience was in Yugoslavia in 1988 and 1989.
Twelve days later, he left for the U.S.
On Dec. 19, 2000, Vidic applied for permanent resident status. On his application, he swore he never committed a crime in his home country, only served in the Yugoslavian army before Croatians and Serbians began warring and never engaged in terrorist activity or killing anyone because of their ethnicity.
On June 6, 2005, another immigration officer interviewed about his application. Vidic told the same lies.
Ten days later, his application was approved. He was now a lawful permanent resident of the United States with a green card.
'So good with a knife'
In Ohio, Vidic worked as a butcher, running his own shop and for a local supermarket chain. Women employees at the chain accused him of sexual harassment, according to a July 16, 2023, story published in the Cleveland Plain Dealer newspaper. The chain settled a suit filed by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission for $300,000, though Vidic always denied the women’s claims, according to the newspaper.
People who gave sworn depositions in the case, portrayed Vidic as a master butcher, the newspaper reported.
“Jugo is so good with a knife,” one said.
He was also cited several times for violations as a butcher and lost his license to work as one.
In 2017, he was living in North Royalton, Ohio, a Cleveland suburb when the U.S. government revoked his green card.
A Department of Homeland Security special agent interviewed him on Nov. 28, 2017, five days after Thanksgiving.
Vidic lied and said he was never at the factory, served in the Serbian army only involuntarily and only for eight months.
Indicted Jan. 12, 2023, he pleaded guilty to immigration fraud in a federal court in northern Ohio, according to court records.
He’s scheduled for release from prison Aug. 10, according to the federal Bureau of Prison inmate tracker.
