An extradited Bosnian former
military commander who was convicted in Bosnia of killing three
Italian humanitarian workers in 1993 arrives in Milan on Friday
to face murder charges, sources said Thursday.
Hanefija Prijic, 53, was arrested in Germany in October on
an international arrest warrant issued by authorities in the
northern city of Brescia in 2000.
On May 29, 1993, Prijic and his men ambushed a humanitarian
aid convoy from an Italian grassroots volunteer group on the
outskirts of the Bosnian town of Gornj Vakuf, stole their
supplies, and killed conscientious objector Sergio Lana, 21,
builder Fabio Moreni, 40, and journalist Guido Puletti, 40.
Lana and Puletti were from Brescia. Moreni was from
Cremona.
Two more volunteers, freelance photographer Christian
Penocchio and Agostino Zanotti, aged 26 and 34 at the time,
escaped with their lives into nearby woods and then to a United
Nations peacekeeping outpost.
All five of the men had been working for a Brescia-based
center that coordinated missions for various humanitarian
organizations.
Zanotti said in an interview at the time that their convoy
was attacked by a marauding gang of some 30 irregular troops
wearing a motley assortment of badges and other identifying
marks and who did not appear to belong to any particular
faction.
A Bosnian court in 2001 sentenced Prijic to 15 years in
prison for giving the order to shoot the three Italians.
He served his time and was released in 2014, and was picked
up in Germany on the Brescia warrant a year later.
He will be processed at Milan's San Vittore prison and then
transferred to Brescia's Canton Mombello prison pending his
murder trial.
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