Bosnian Residing In Missouri Faces Extradition Hearing In War Crimes Case

A former Bosnian military policeman will appear in a federal court on October 15 in St. Louis, Missouri for an extradition hearing to his native country where he was indicted for raping a pregnant Serbian woman.

According to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch newspaper, Adem Kostjerevac, 58, served in the 1st Muslim Brigade in Zvornik, a city in the Republika Srpska entity of Bosnia-Herzegovina during the Bosnian war that lasted from 1992 until 1995.

A Bosnian court confirmed his indictment in absentia in April 2015 on suspicion of raping a woman prisoner after she was arrested on September 17, 1992.

Based on the extradition request, the woman, who was a neighbor of Kostjerevac's, said she was also raped several times by a guard at a different detention center. The multiple ordeals caused her to miscarry and she weighed only about 37 kilograms when she was released in a prisoner exchange on February 5, 1993.

The victim testified before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in 2005.

In 2014, Kostjerevac told the FBI in St. Louis that he saw the woman while she was in custody, and that he had provided her with food and protected her when others tried to kill her.

He denied raping her and said he saw her once only.

Court documents said the suspect suffers from many ailments, including PTSD, diabetes, and high blood pressure, which is why he couldn’t voluntarily attend Bosnian court hearings.

He emigrated to the United States about 17 years ago and lives with his wife and has five adult children. Kostjerevac recently resided in unincorporated southern St. Louis County.

He was arrested on August 23 after which the extradition request, filed on August 14, was unsealed.

With reporting by AP, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and Detektor