Croatian authorities say the driver can now be extradited to Kosovo: If convicted, likely

Croatia's Ministry of Justice and Administration does not rule out the possibility that the driver, who caused the terrible accident Sunday near Slavonski Brod, will be extradited to Kosovo in the event of his sentence.

In a response to Gazeta Express, this minister has said that at this stage of criminal procedure the driver will continue to be held in Croatia.

The extradition procedures between the Republic of Croatia and the Republic of Kosovo will be developed on the basis of reciprocity. However, given the fact that in the case you wrote, the suspect is in custody in the Republic of Croatia, which has begun criminal proceedings against him, it is not possible to implement extradition in this particular case”, the Croatian Ministry of Justice and Administration's response reported.

Also mentioned is an agreement that exists between Kosovo and Croatia, and is envisioned taking over criminal procedure.

“In accordance with the Convention on Inter-united Jurydic Assistance to Criminal Affairs between the Republic of Croatia and the Republic of Kosovo signed in 2012, in this case it is possible to apply criminal prosecution, if the competent Croatian judicial body determines there are conditions for this, and if the Republic of Kosovo takes over the process”, it is said in response.

If the driver is sentenced to prison, he could be transferred to Kosovo to serve his sentence. The Croatian ministry says the precondition for this is meeting the conditions outlined by the internal legislation of the two states.

In the event that a citizen of the Republic of Kosovo is legally sentenced to prison in the Republic of Croatia, it is possible that he will be transferred to the Republic of Kosovo to serve his country's prison sentence in order to better social rehabilitation, if the condemned person has requested the transfer and the conditions outlined by the internal legislation of the two states” are highlighted in the response to the Ministry of Justice and Administration in Croatia.

Kosovo has no agreement with Croatia on transferring convicts. From the Ministry of Justice in Kosovo said Tuesday for Express that the 52-year-old, who is a citizen of Kosovo, could be transferred to serve the sentence in Kosovo, in case the Croatian state is hired.

Kosovo's “Republic and the Republic of Croatia do not have bilateral agreements on the transfer of condemned persons, but Kosovo law stipulates that if the other state is hired (garanton in reciprocity), the condemned person can be transferred to suffer the remainder of the sentence”, the justice ministry's response reported.

Mile Soldo, the investigative judge who made the decision to arrest the Kosovo driver, explained before the media there that the agreement Croatia has with Kosovo for co-operation in criminal procedures does not provide for the extradition of citizens due to prosecution.

The procedure will be conducted in Croatia. However, there is a legal opportunity for it to develop in Kosovo, but requires the consent of the two sides, it is not up to defence to impose”, he said.

A moment's sleep in driving was said to be the cause of Sunday's tragedy that came after the bus moved fatally off the highway, but this was denied by the driver's lawyer on Tuesday.

The District Court in Slavonski Brod imposed on Tuesday a 30-day detention measure against bus leaders, due to the risk of escape. Therefore, the driver may be sentenced to jail terms of between three and 15 years, according to the Criminal Code in Croatia.

Following the decision on the driver's detention hearing, his lawyer, Igor Cisper from the legal office of the renowned Croatian lawyer, Ljubo Pavasovic Viskovic, said his client never told anyone he had slept during his drive.

She's very sorry. As far as I know, he never told anyone he was asleep. He told me a few things, but I'm going to hold on to”, said lawyer Cisper.

But on the day of the tragedy, Deputy State Prosecutor Slavko Prnjq said the driver had fallen asleep for a moment while driving.

“The driver was arrested under suspicion of improper driving. What are the reasons for this, we cannot say for now. He claimed he fell asleep for a moment, but we'll determine him later”, Prnaq said.

The State Prosecutor's Office in Croatia said Monday that the suspect was tired and unable to drive safely at the time of the accident.

The driver had been handcuffed to the prosecutor on Monday, where he had chosen to defend himself in silence.

Croatian police said Sunday that at 6:19 in the morning, they had accepted the accident report on the A3 Bregana-Lipovac highway, in the southern lane near the town of Slavonski Brod. In the Police's statement, it has been described how the 67 - passenger bus and two drivers were off the highway.

“During the investigation, in the presence of the state attorney, police determined that the traffic accident occurred so that a 52-year-old Kosovo citizen was driving a document bus and Kosovo registration license plates in the south lane of A3 Coastan-Arway from west to east. Reaching the 211th mile of the highway, the driver did not move in the middle of the target lane, but drove the vehicle to the bar area, and then the bus crashed to its side. The members of fire brigades and other emergency teams intervened at the site of the event to take the troops of the crash”, the statement said.

According to the Croatian medium, 24sata.hr, bus drivers from Kosovo who were carrying exiles from Frankfurt to Pristina, prior to the accident had stopped on the coast for half an hour. There they had changed, and the other driver had taken the bus route.

The driver who wasn't driving at the tragic moment is among the dead, along with nine passengers. His son said Sunday that his father has been working for about eight months at the “Deva Tours” company. He said drivers had stopped only that evening that they had arrived in Germany, and in the morning they were again headed for Kosovo.

The “were launched 3-4 days ago, even when they arrived, only that evening they stopped, and immediately around 9:00 a.m. they left for Kosovo. The last time I spoke to him was the moment they crossed the German-Austri” border, he said about REL.

Josip Mataija, chief of the Traffic Security Service in Croatia, was recently a guest on N1 television, where he spoke directly about the accident in which 10 Kosovo citizens died. He said the tragedy would be smaller if the travelers were connected to the seat belt.

A part of the passengers got off the bus. If they had stayed in the vehicle, the tragedy would have been smaller. Buses from 2008 should have seat belts. This bus had seat belts, but apparently some passengers did not use them”, he said.

In this traffic accident, 10 people died, 15 people were seriously injured, 30 more easily. The injured were transported to the regional hospital in Slavonski Brod, where some of them are being held for further medical treatment, some were sent to Zagreb, while some returned to Kosovo.

On Wednesday in Kosovo arrived the 10 bodies of those who suffered fatally from the accident.

Kosovo President Vjosa Osmani declared Monday this week a mourning day because of this accident, which claimed the lives of exiles coming from Germany to Kosovo.

Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti, along with some of the ministers, was in Croatia on Sunday, while Kosovo's ambassador there, Gzim Casaporelli, had previously visited those injured at the regional hospital in Slavonski Brod.