In 1976, Zvonko Busic was convicted in the United States of air piracy resulting in an unintentional death and received a life sentence with parole eligibility after service of ten years. His only goal was to publicize the political murders and human rights abuses of Croatians in the former Yugoslavia. In the past he had the right to be paroled, per modification of sentence by the trial judge, but has been denied several times.
The U.S Embassy told Hina on Tuesday that it is common procedure to transfer a detainee to the jurisdiction of the Department of the Homeland Security before his or her deportation to the target country.
"Busic is a fighter for Croatia's freedom, but the methods he used were not in line with democratic standards. Nevertheless, it is undisputed that Busic and his group wanted to point to the difficult position of Croats and Belgrade's hegemony," Croatian Parliament Speaker Vladimir Seks said at a news conference on Tuesday.
Seks went on to say that the Croatian state leadership, particularly the late President Franjo Tudjman, had tried on several occasions to have Busic released sooner in talks with former US President Bill Clinton, state secretaries and justice ministers, but to no avail.
The parliament speaker said that Busic had served all absolute prison terms for participation in a terrorist act as stipulated by the US legislation, and that all conditions for his release had been met.
He said that he saw no elements that would link Busic and his acts with terrorism today, particularly not with the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington on September 11, 2001, and that there was nobody in the USA or Europe who had served a 30-year prison term for similar acts.
Novi List daily today reported that Busic was to be released on Monday after having served 30 years in prison for hijacking a plane, and that he was to be deported to Croatia.
A group of Croatian political activists, led by Busic, on September 10, 1976, hijacked a civil plane flying from New York to Chicago with a plan to throw from the plane leaflets calling for Croatia's independence from the former Yugoslavia over London and Paris.
The plane landed in Paris, where the hijackers surrendered after the content of their proclamation was published in the US press at their request.
Before the hijacking, the hijackers left a bomb in a box in the New York underground railway, of which they informed the police through the pilot, however, a police officer was killed while deactivating the bomb.
Busic was sentenced to life, with the possibility to be granted pardon after ten years. The sentence envisaged release after 30 years in prison, on September 11, 2006.
Along with Busic, also sentenced were his American wife Julienne Eden Busic and three other Croats, all of whom have served their prison terms in full.