France extradites Serb war crimes suspect to Croatia

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France has extradited to Croatia a former Serb paramilitary suspected of killing prisoners at the start of the country's war for independence in the 1990s, police said on Wednesday.

The 62-year-old suspect was arrested on a European arrest warrant on October 5 at the Calais border crossing as he had entered from Britain, a Croatian police statement said.

The man, whose identity was not revealed, was handed over to Croatia on Tuesday and placed in prison.

He is suspected in particular of killing five Croatian police and army captives held by Serb paramilitary forces in October 1991, the statement said.

The five, along with another person still not identified, were "shot dead in the yard of a house in Ceric", a village in eastern Croatia, it added.

He is also suspected of "having physically abused three members of the Croatian army, all of them aged 18, due to which one sustained serious injuries" in Ceric and nearby Mirkovci, police said.

Croatia is looking for three other members of the man's paramilitary unit for these crimes, committed when the area was captured by Serb forces.

Croatia's declaration of independence from Yugoslavia sparked the 1991-1995 war with Belgrade-backed ethnic Serbs who opposed the move.

The conflict claimed around 20,000 lives.