Asylum to Serbian with Srebrenica video denied

Mirilo told Oe1 radio he feared for his life if he is returned to Serbia, saying he had had death threats before he fled to Austria in 2007.

VIENNA, February 5, 2010 (AFP) - Austrian authorities have rejected an asylum request from a Serbian who supplied video footage of warcrimes at Srebrenica, meaning he could soon be repatriated, Amnesty International said Friday

The rights group's Austria representative, Heinz Patzelt, told AFP it was the second time Jovan Mirilo's request had been refused and he and his family risked being deported within two or three weeks unless he won an appeal.

Mirilo told Oe1 radio he feared for his life if he is returned to Serbia, saying he had had death threats before he fled to Austria in 2007.

He said the brother of the owner of the video, who had been expelled from the Netherlands, was publicly murdered last April.

Mirilo got hold of a copy of the video, showing six Bosnian Muslims being killed by Serbian irregulars in Srebrenica in 1995.

He sent the video to the UN court in The Hague which at the time was trying former Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic for genocide and war crimes.

Serbian forces rounded up and massacred an estimated 8,000 Muslim men and boys after over-running the Srebrenica in the last year of the Bosnian war.

Mirilo was awarded the 2007 Bruno Kreisky prize for his role in helping to elucidate what happened at Srebrenica.

The Austrian media also criticised the refusal by the federal asylum office (BAA) to grant asylum, on the basis of a report citing an anonymous informant that Mirilo was an imposter and that Serbia was now deened a safe country.

Mirilo's lawyer, Nadja Lorenz, has lodged an appeal to an independent asylum authority which can yet halt an expulsion, Patzelt said.

A BAA spokesman refused to comment, citing case confidentiality.