Georgia man accused of war crimes convicted by federal jury
A federal jury on Wednesday convicted a Loganville man of obtaining his U.S. citizenship by fraud because he failed to disclose he was a guard at a Bosnian concentration camp almost 25 years ago.
Mladen Mitrovic, who has lived in the metro area for the past two decades, was found guilty of giving false answers in 2002 on his naturalization application form. Among them: Mitrovic said he had never persecuted anyone because of their race, religion or national origin.
But federal prosecutors said Mitrovic not only led prisoners into a makeshift torture chamber, he also participated in the beatings. During the weeklong trial, at least two people who were at the prison camp in Trnopolje in northwest Bosnia in the summer of 1992 identified Mitrovic as a guard at the camp.
Mitrovic, who is to be sentenced Aug. 25, faces up to 10 years in prison and deportation after serving his time behind bars. U.S. District Judge Amy Totenberg allowed Mitrovic to remain free on bond until his sentencing.
Federal prosecutors accused Mitrovic of war-time atrocities — part of the ethnic cleansing of Roman Catholic Croats and Muslim Bosniaks at the hands of Orthodox Christian Serbian forces in the former Yugoslavia.
One government witness, Nedzad Jakupovic, said a man named “Mladen” forced him into a torture room inside the prison camp. Serbian soldiers then jumped on his head, pushed a burning cigarette into an open wound and beat him until he lost consciousness, Jakupovic testified.
Mitrovic’s lawyers told jurors the government had the wrong man.
“Not only is Mr. Mitrovic not guilty, he’s innocent,” his federal public defender, Jeff Ertel, said during closing arguments. “He wasn’t a guard at that camp. He never persecuted anybody.”
Ertel contended the government’s case didn’t make sense because Mitrovic was a Croat Catholic who’d baptized his two sons Catholic. For these reasons, among others, the Serbs would not have wanted Mitrovic to serve as one of their guards, Ertel said.
But Assistant U.S. Attorney Will Traynor told jurors that Mitrovic was a relatively common Serbian name and that Mitrovic’s wife was a Serb.
What makes more sense, Traynor said, was that “this country was breaking apart and he goes with the guys with the guns.”
About the Author
Bill Rankin has been an AJC reporter for more than 30 years. His father, Jim Rankin, worked as an editor for the newspaper for 26 years, retiring in 1986. Bill has primarily covered the state’s court system, doing all he can do to keep the scales of justice on an even keel. Since 2015, he has been the host of the newspaper’s Breakdown podcast.
