FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
September 19, 2005

CONTACT: Andy Verich
202-463-8643

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The Honorable Alberto R. Gonzales
Attorney General
Washington, DC 20503

Sir:

If has come to our attention that there has recently been a sweep of arrests of Serb immigrants. They include men and women up to 65 years in age, many of them formerly victims of war crimes who spent time in concentration camps during the war in Bosnia & Hercegovina. This wholesale attack follows other similarly-based arrests of Serb immigrants during the last year. The people in question have been charged with lying on an affidavit they signed during the immigration process denying that they served in military forces during the war.

The arrests have been focused on those who are located in Phoenix and other parts of Arizona. Coincidentally, these arrests have taken place since Ms. Camille Bibles became the new Assistant US Attorney in Nevada. Ms. Bibles was formerly a lawyer for the Office of the Prosecutor at ICTY involved in the Srebrenica case. Coincidentally also, after the arrests, the indicted were approached by ICTY prosecution representatives to testify as witnesses in the ICTY Srebrenica and other trials.

After being jailed for not answering truthfully on the affidavit about his military service, one of the arrested parties was threatened with indictment as a war criminal if he did not testify in one of two cases at the ICTY. He had been identified by a Serb (protected) witness. But when official transcripts showed that the protected witness who fingered him admitted to lying about this man, the war crimes charge was dropped.

We are an organization of Americans of Serb background throughout the United States and our membership and friends are very concerned with the discrimination implications in this action. Morever, we are concerned and upset that the deep and terrible wounds of the Bosnian war and tragedy are not being allowed to rest and heal. Have not those people suffered enough? We are not aware of a similar wholesale attack on the basis of an affidavit on the tens of thousands of Croatian or Muslim immigrants from Bosnia & Hercegovina who also served in various military units during the war.

We are very concerned that:

• This action represents selective prosecution based on membership in an ethnic group, therefore ethnic profiling;
• There has not been any prosecution of members of any other ethnic groups involved in this or other civil conflicts solely on the basis of membership in a foreign army.

Can you please assist in assessing this problem by answering the following critical questions:

1. Has your office conducted identical or similar investigations of other ethnic groups who were involved in the civil war in Bosnia or elsewhere and have been admitted to the US? If so, when, where and how many members of the other ethnic groups have been indicted? Or, if not, is this simply limited to Serb immigrants?
2. Have your representatives applied the same due diligence and in proportionally the same number of cases in examining members of other ethnic groups as you did with the Serbian immigrants? If not, why not? Please give us the specifics in this answer.

Very truly yours,

Best regards,

Nenad Vukicevic
President, Serbian Unity Congress

Cc: Secretary Condoleeza Rice, Department of State
Secretary Michael Chertoff, Department of Homeland Security
Congressmen Dan Burton, Rahm Emanuel, co-chairmen, Serbian Congressional Caucus
Senate and House Committees on the Judiciary
Senate and House Subcommittees on Immigration and Refugees