Basic may be returned to Bosnia-Herzegovina to face charges that she murdered and tortured people during bloody ethnic fighting there in 1992, a federal magistrate judge ruled Friday, the media said.
Judge Robert Wier ruled that treaties are in place to allow 52-year-old Azra Basic to be returned to Bosnia.
Basic, who was born in Croatia and who has been living in the U.S. Federal State of Kentucky for some time now, is charged with murder and torture of Serbs in the northern Bosnian town of Derventa from April to June of 1992. The judge rules that testimonies of 26 witnesses collected by the Bosnian prosecutorial authorities are "highly convincing."
Witnesses identified Basic as a soldier in the Croatian army and said she killed one prisoner and tortured others by forcing them to drink human blood and gasoline and having them kneel on broken glass, the U.S. media reported.
Basic fought extradition on a number of grounds.
The final decision on her handover will be made by the State Department.
Basic has been living under different names in the USA and she was arrested last year after Bosnia issued a warrant for her apprehension in 2006.