ABC Foreign Correspondent - Captain Dragan (2010) - MVGROUP

Information
Captain Dragan
Broadcast: 28/09/2010
Reporter: Trevor Bormann


In a major investigation, Foreign Correspondent has unearthed a dramatic account of the war-time activities of Australia citizen and former Serbian paramilitary commander Dragan Vasiljkovic that goes beyond the borders of Croatia where he’s accused of war crimes.

A Bosnian woman speaks openly for the first time about her treatment at the hands of Vasiljkovic and his men claiming she was systematically abused and raped by the commander.

Vasiljkovic – also known as Daniel Snedden – is currently in Sydney’s Silverwater Prison awaiting final ministerial determination on his extradition to Croatia where a war crimes case is being assembled.

After a series of legal rulings going all the way to the High Court - which cleared the way for his dispatch to Croatia - a decision from Home Affairs Minister Brendan O’Connor is expected soon.

But his many supporters in Australia and Serbia are vowing to fight on and defeat the extradition.

Foreign Correspondent's assembled a major assessment of the case for and against the man held up by Serbia as a national hero and despised by Croatia as a brutal and callous war criminal.

In her first major interview Vasiljkovic’s Australian wife Nada Lukich-Bruce speaks expansively to reporter Trevor Bormann in passionate defence of the man she first met behind bars. Vasiljkovic’s brother Michael also participates in our program as does a former soldier under Captain Dragan’s command. Her Royal Highness Princess Linda of Serbia tells Bormann how she believes emphatically that he is an honourable soldier deserving of his national hero status and utterly incapable of war crimes.

Conversely, Croatians in Foreign Correspondent’s program paint a starkly different picture.

We hear from police officers who recall their appalling treatment allegedly at the hands of Captain Dragan. The two men recount their ordeal of imprisonment and torture. In the Croatian capital Zagreb, Foreign Correspondent talks to the legal team assembling the case against Vasiljkovic and the former Justice minister who’s been relentlessly pursuing him for trial.

But it’s the account of the Bosnian woman that expands the range of his alleged behaviour – crimes strongly denied by Vasiljkovic and his supporters.