Negligent British police throw a man in jail -- when a Google search would have shown he was innocent

Neither thinking nor listening is what British police do

An armed police squad arrested a painter and decorator and imprisoned him for nearly a fortnight after he was mistaken for a brutal war criminal.

They stormed the home of Mile Bosnic and told him he was wanted on charges of orchestrating killing, stripping and torturing victims and wholesale looting during the Balkan War. One officer told him: ‘We’ve known about you for years.’

But in a bizarre mix-up over identity, Mr Bosnic’s only offence was to have the same name as another man wanted for mass murder.

Police insisted an official extradition request from the Croatian embassy had named him as the brutal enforcer of the Republic of Serbian Krajina in the early Nineties.

Mr Bosnic, 54, who lives with his wife Rose, 48, and children Bianca, 29, and Slobodan, 28, in Gloucester, was hauled before an extradition court in London. He would have been sent back to Eastern Europe to face trial for the alleged crimes if his lawyer had not argued there had been a mistake and he should be remanded in custody. He was then held in Wandsworth Prison, South London, for 12 days before authorities released him. Officers were convinced they had the right man.

Both men were called Mile Bosnic, although they were born three years and 250 miles apart in the former Yugoslavia.

In a farcical display of incompetent officialdom, Mr Bosnic’s identity card photo and fingerprints were wrongly attached to his Serb namesake’s records by Croatian investigators.

Mr Bosnic had fled Croatia with his family in 1999 after masked militia threatened them in their home. They sought political asylum in Britain because as Orthodox Christians they were victims of a hate campaign by both Serbs and Croatian Catholics.

Speaking in broken English, through his daughter Bianca, Mr Bosnic said: ‘What happened was beyond belief. I believed Britain was our refuge. All my family work. We don’t seek benefits we live quietly and peacefully.

‘Yet because of some unknown official in Croatia, I am dragged from my home, forced to watch my wife and children crying as I stand accused of dreadful crimes and then get locked in prison. ‘No one even told me where I was being held. No one spoke to me in jail because my English is not good. All I want is to clear my name.

‘People walk past our home pointing at us as though we are monsters. I just thank God for our wonderful neighbours and friends who have always known the truth.’

Mr Bosnic first heard four years ago that a man with the same name was wanted for war crimes when his wife, who works in a car parts factory, discovered the name on a Croatian government wanted list as she surfed the internet. Friends advised her to hire a lawyer in Zagreb who specialised in proving identity. But after forwarding a £500 fee, she never heard from him again.

In October 2008, Croatian judge Ivan Perkovic issued an arrest warrant that named Mr Bosnic, gave his correct birthday as December 26, 1955, in Vukovar and his father’s name as Milivoj Bosnic.

But the warrant was based on the mixed-up documentation. It meant Scotland Yard’s extradition department received a photo and fingerprints that precisely matched the man they arrested in Gloucester on March 25.

Mr Bosnic appeared before Westminster Magistrates’ Court the following day. He faced five charges – breaking the Geneva Convention, committing torture, murdering unidentified persons, unlawful imprisonment of Croats and theft from unknown persons. The prosecutor sought immediate deportation but Mr Bosnic’s lawyer, Julian Atlee, successfully argued for a remand, allowing the family to prove his innocence.

Mrs Bosnic, Bianca and Slobodan launched a campaign using contacts in Croatia to build their case. Backed by a Serb pressure group called Veritas which seeks to prosecute Croats suspected of war crimes, they traced documents showing that Mr Bosnic was doing national service with the Yugoslav army at the time he was supposed to be oppressing Krajina.

They also pointed out he had been a shoe factory worker in Croatia for 19 years and that, given the wealth he had allegedly plundered, a three-bed terrace on a busy Gloucester road was an unlikely hideaway.

But the most convincing evidence emerged from a simple Google search. It revealed that the real suspect attended the funeral of his boss – former Krajina Democratic Party president Milan Babic – in Belgrade in 2006.

Mr Bosnic was released from Wandsworth Prison on April 6 with no explanation. A Home Office spokesman said: ‘We were acting on an extradition request which turned out not to be accurate. 'We wouldn’t normally issue an apology in these cases but Mr Bosnic may be able to claim compensation.’

Original report here



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