prijava
SARAJEVO, October 23 (FENA) - Zoran Pantić, who was convicted of involvement in the killing of a Bosniak family but escaped from prison in 1995 and lived in Switzerland as a fugitive, has been sent back to jail in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Zoran Pantić, who participated in killing six members of a family in 1993 and then escaped from prison and went to live in Switzerland under a false name, was extradited to Bosnia and Herzegovina and has been back behind bars in Bijeljina since Monday evening, local media reported on Tuesday.
Mirna Miljanović, the head of the RS Interior Ministry’s public relations department told SRNA news agency that police located Pantić in Switzerland “after a couple of years of intensive work”.
Pantić was sentenced to 12 years and 10 months in prison for his role in the killings of the Isić family in the Bijeljina area in October 1993.
Pantić and others first promised the Isić family that they would transfer them to Serbia for a fee.
They left with the family in a truck, but during the journey, Pantić and his accomplices made a deal with each other to kill the family and steal their money and belongings.
They took the family to a village called Međasi, where one of the accomplices had a weekend cottage. He killed two women and a child with a semi-automatic rifle and then gave it to Pantić, who killed a male, female and a child.
They threw the corpses into the Drina River, returned to Bijeljina and split the money and belongings they stole among themselves.
After he was sentenced, Pantić then escaped the county prison in Bijelijna in October 1995.
He went to Switzerland and took on his brother’s identity, calling himself Dalibor Pantić and claiming he was a Serbian citizen.
He then married a Swiss citizen, took her last name and applied for citizenship.
Prior to his extradition, Pantić contacted lawyer Miodrag Stojanović, who was one of the judges in Pantić’s trial in the mid-1990s, and told him that he would ask for a review of the judgment.
Pantić, who confessed to the murders at the time, now claims that his confession was made under duress.
Stojanović said however that he knew nothing about that.
“He confessed his participation in committing that criminal act and based on that information and other evidence 25 years ago, we judged and found him guilty and sentenced him,” Stojanović told BIRN.
(FENA) S. R.
