On 19 January 2006 Daniel Snedden was arrested  and imprisoned  at the discretion of the Minister(s)of the former Howard government who received an extradition request from Croatia for his questioning for alleged  ‘war crimes’.

It is important to note, that as a former belligerent country, Croatia cannot under it’s written agreement with the ICTY (International Crime Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia) charge Daniel with war crimes, he was investigated twice by that body and found to be of ‘no interest’. Instead, they created a ‘loop hole’ by issuing arrest warrants for alleged crimes committed during the war and thus the Extradition Act takes over (which is used for  day-to-day criminal acts and operates on a ‘no evidence’ rule). Hence, the country requesting the extradition is not obligated to provide any evidence supporting the alleged crimes.  However, we believe that there is an obligation on the Attorney General or formally delegated Minister to ensure that a valid objection to the extradition does not exist prior to allowing the extradition to proceed – something that appears not to have been done in the case of Daniel Snedden. We also believe, a number of other acts and omissions in the processing of the extradition, the arrest and even some of the earlier legal proceedings in particular appear to have taken place and resulted in an innocent Australian being deprived of his rights and his liberty to fight the injustice that has befallen him.  Furthermore, there appears to have been no obvious attempt to ensure that the case was handled under the correct laws or conventions and so to  prevent Croatia from achieving a ‘backdoor extradition’, where they appear to have transformed the relevant Geneva Conventions into their criminal code so that they could extradite Daniel under the Extradition Act rather than being processed in Australia in accordance with the rules contained within the Geneva Conventions.   The approach used by previous Government officials and our legal system in processing Daniel Snedden’s extradition case is precedent setting and has caused alarm both inside and outside the Australian Serbian community.  It has created strong feelings of vulnerability with those in the wider community who have been exposed to this case, particularly with respect as to whether our rights would be protected by the Australian Government and our legal institutions, should we ever find ourselves in a similar position to that of Daniel Snedden.    Daniel Snedden is keen to clear his name and intends to fight until he succeeds. We will continue to support him and his rights, as we believe that the implications are wide and serious and have a very real potential to affect other Australians in the future. We are committed to do what we can to prevent the extradition of this innocent man to what we know would be his certain death or ‘misfortune.’  Daniel Snedden (Dragan Vasiljkovic) is considered both a hero and a great humanitarian. His work through the Captain Dragan Foundation has helped tens of thousands of people affected by the recent civil war in the former Yugoslavia: Muslim, Serb and Croat.  Yours sincerely

The Committee Serbs for Justice and Democracy