Fugitive Dobrosav Gavric, who is wanted in Serbia, is applying for political and religious asylum and refugee status in South Africa.
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Fugitive Dobrosav Gavric, who is wanted for two assassinations and a murder in Serbia, is applying for political and religious asylum and refugee status in South Africa, it emerged on Wednesday.
Speaking outside the Cape Town Magistrate’s Court after Gavric’s bail hearing application, ahead of a possible extradition order, attorney Juan Smuts told the Cape Times that he had already begun to compile the papers.
“We will argue for asylum and refugee status (and) the chance of success is good,” Smuts said, adding it would be part of the bail application. “Without elucidating, (the asylum status) will be on political and religious grounds. Arkan killed 1 400 Bosnian Muslim people,” he said, referring to the Serbian warlord whom Gavric has been convicted of killing.
Smuts said that, although Gavric was not Muslim, his life would be in danger if he was extradited to Serbia. “He’s actually fearing for his life. An extradition abroad will literally assign him a death warrant,” he said.
Smuts said he had not discussed with Gavric what argument the defence team would make for asylum and refugee status.
“There’s no precedent for Serb refugees,” Smuts said.
Gavric was driving underworld figure Cyril Beeka when he was killed in an assassination-style shooting earlier this year. He had been using a false name, hiding out in South Africa for roughly four years before handing himself over to the Hawks in Bellville on Tuesday.
Gavric and two other men were convicted 12 years ago of assassinating Serbia’s most feared paramilitary leader, Zeljko Raznatovic, better known as Arkan.
On Wednesday morning, Gavric appeared nervous during his brief appearance in court, during which the State applied for a postponement of the formal bail application hearing to January.
Gavric was not granted bail and will remain in custody at the Sea Point Police Station after his attorneys requested that he be kept there due to what they described as a severe illness. Smuts said Gavric was suffering from a “lower motor neuron incisional hernia” and that he was not “very receptive to antibiotics”.
“They will make special arrangements for him (at the Sea Point Police Station).
“I wouldn’t say he is gravely ill but he has a medical condition,” he told the Cape Times reporters outside court.
Further evidence on the illness will be provided by Johannesburg-based neurologist Roger Phillips, Smuts said.
Asked what his client did for a living, Smuts replied that he worked in “imports and exports”.
Attorney Johann Nortje, who is part of Gavric’s defence team, said he had received “a bundle” of court documents on Wednesday morning and still needed more time to examine them properly. Nortje said: “There (are) extradition papers that need to be heard before 10 January, 2012.”
Smuts said he expected extradition papers within the next two weeks, adding that they would lapse after 40 days.
Gavric is expected to oppose extradition.
This week Hawks spokesman McIntosh Polela said Gavric had used the name Sasa Kobacevic to enter South Africa about four years ago. He gave this name to police after he was wounded during Beeka’s murder on March 21. Beeka, 49, was shot while he was a passenger in a BMW 4x4 being driven by Gavric near the University of the Western Cape.
Last week Polela said Gavric, who he had then still referred to as Sasa Kobacevic, had been treated in hospital. When he was discharged, officers had found cocaine in his bag.
This had led to Gavric being arrested for drug possession, and the Hawks started working with Serbian authorities to determine if Kobacevic was indeed Gavric, Polela said.
Smuts said the charge of drug possession was a “trivial” offence compared to the extradition case for murder and assassination.
“That’s a minor offence. That’s atmosphere,” he said.
Smuts said that the cocaine possession charge was “effectively what prompted proceedings today (on Wednesday) and his arrest” for extradition to Serbia.
He said Interpol had instructed the Hawks to arrest Gavric because of the murder conviction.
In his statement to the Hawks, Gavric said of his wife and two children, who all live in Cape Town: “I regard myself as a committed father and I play an active role in my children’s lives, who I love dearly. I do not want to be separated from them.”
In terms of the crimes Gavric said: “I still maintain I was wrongly accused and convicted and sentenced.”
Referring to the extradition papers, Smuts said: “It’s a long shot we won’t receive because the Serbian government has (been making a concerted effort to have Gavric extradited).”
shanti.aboobaker@inl.co.za