State Investigation and Protection Agency (SIPA) members arrested Vinko Martinovic Stela in Mostar today, on the basis of a warrant from Croatia for the murder of Jasmina Dukic in 1996 in Mostar, the Istraga portal has learned.
Croatian Supreme Court increased the sentence from seven to ten years in prison for the murder of Jasmina Djukic, but he fled to Bosnia and Herzegovina after the verdict in Zagreb.
“Stela, who four years ago, a few minutes before the announcement of the verdict, walked out of the building of the Zagreb County Court and managed to escape from Croatia, is in BiH whose citizenship protects him from extradition to Croatia,” Zagreb’s Jutarnji list reported last year. .
An Interpol warrant has been issued for Stela since then, and he lived freely in BiH.
Before being prosecuted for the murder of Jasmina Dukic, Stela was sentenced in The Hague to 18 years in prison for war crimes against Bosniaks.
After serving 12 years, Stela was released in 2012. He was subsequently prosecuted for murder before the Croatian judiciary.
When he was sentenced to seven years in prison in the first instance, Stela fled to BiH, where he was arrested on Wednesday, BHRT reports.
