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Serbian-Australian jailed for war crimes

A court in Croatia has convicted a former Serbian paramilitary commander and Australian citizen iof war crimes, sentencing him to 15 years in jail.

Dragan Vasiljkovic, known as Captain Dragan and Daniel Snedden, was found guilty of torturing and murdering civilians during his time as paramilitary leader during the 1991 to 1995 Croatian war. Mr Vasiljkovic holds dual Serbian-Australian citizenship and was working as a golf instructor in Perth.

A lengthy legal battle had taken place to extradite him from Australia to Croatia, eventually resulting in the extradition in July 2015.

Mr Vasiljkovic remained defiant throughout his trial, stating that "not only did I not commit any crimes that I am charged with, I can only ask why I was brought here and charged in the first place".

"Neither I committed the crimes stated in the indictment nor they occurred," he told the tribunal.

See more from ABC here, SBS here and DW here.

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