Serbia extradites Ranko Radulović to Montenegro, accused of rape and war crimes in Bosnia and Herzegovina

(Patria) - Ranko Radulović, considered one of the leaders of a high-risk criminal group from Montenegro, was extradited from Serbia to Montenegro today, announced the Police Directorate of Montenegro.

Interpol Podgorica issued an international arrest warrant for Radulović to serve a prison sentence of two years and three months, to which he was convicted for assaulting a public official, and the remaining part of a three-month prison sentence for endangering security.

By order of the High Court in Podgorica, Radulović is also sought for his presence in criminal proceedings in which he is suspected of forming a criminal organization, incitement to aggravated murder, usury, and rape.

Radulović was arrested by Serbian police on March 26 in Belgrade in an apartment where he was hiding. He had been on the run since June 2024, when he was reported for raping a 23-year-old woman. The indictment accusing him of raping the girl on May 31, 2024, was confirmed by the High Court in February of this year.

Radulović had previously been arrested on suspicion of participating in the planning of several liquidations as a close associate of the Škaljari criminal clan.

At the end of November 2021, his pre-trial detention was lifted by a decision of the High Court because the court had not issued a first-instance verdict against him and other members of the sixteen-member group for planning executions within three years.

In 2020, an indictment against Radulović for war crimes committed in the Foča area in 1992 was partially confirmed in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The indictment against Radulović, born in 1960 in Nikšić, was filed by the prosecutor of the Special Department for War Crimes, it was announced on September 3, 2020, by the Prosecutor's Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

This indictment was partially confirmed by the Court of BiH. It accuses Radulović, as a member of the Army of Republika Srpska, from the end of July to the end of August 1992, in the Foča area, of persecuting the civilian population of Bosniak nationality and participating in attacks on them, taking hostages, destroying their property, and detaining civilians.

It is also stated that he forced several girls of Bosniak nationality into sexual relations.

In September 2021, he denied guilt before the Court of BiH via video link from the High Court in Podgorica.

A status conference in this procedure in November 2023 was not held because the accused Radulović did not appear at the Court of BiH due to, as his lawyer stated, restrictive measures imposed on him by the High Court in Podgorica.

One of the possibilities was for him to be tried in Podgorica.

"For unknown reasons, the case was not sent to Montenegro, and Radulović cannot attend the trial in BiH because he is being tried in Montenegro in another case," stated Bojana Malović, legal advisor of the Human Rights Action, at the end of 2023 for Radio Slobodna Evropa.