TORONTO (Reuters) - An 18-year-old Kosovo woman has traveled to Canada in hopes of stopping an asylum request by one of the men accused in the massacre of her mother, two brothers and 11 other family members.
Saranda Bogojevci, the oldest of five children, was shot when a Serbian death squad killed 14 members of her extended family in an ethnic cleansing operation in Podujevo, 22 miles (35 km) north of Pristina, the Kosovo capital, in 1999.
[. . . .]
In 2002 two men, Sasa Cvjetan, 28 and Dejan Demirovic, 29, were indicted in the southern Serb town of Prokuplje and charged with murdering Saranda Bogojevci's family. Their trial was to be the first war crimes trial to address atrocities of Serbian forces in Kosovo. [Cvjetan went to trial.]
[. . . .]
The other accused, Dejan Demirovic, evaded arrest, and entered Canada illegally. He is seeking asylum in Canada.
Demirovic was arrested in Windsor, Ontario, in January, charged with illegal entry, and released on bail five months later. In September in Toronto, his Refugee Board hearing was postponed to January 2004, dealing another blow to Bogojevci.
She had come to Toronto to confront him and urge the Canadian government to deny him asylum. She never had the chance.
"I want to know why the Canadian government failed to sent Demirovic to Serbia, to face the justice", said Bogojevci, who speaks Albanian and English but still has to learn the language of Canadian bureaucracy.
"I cannot believe that Canada can let somebody like Demirovic walk freely."
My Commentary:
I--and probably many other Canadians--can believe it, only too well. Good luck, Saranda Bogojevci -- but don't be surprised if our Canadian government protects him and keep him here in case he might be subject to the punishment he deserves, hanging. His human rights versus yours! He made it to refugee heaven and now he's protected from the justice he so deserves. Canadian justice in action! NJC
