Jugoslav Vidić, Croatian war criminal living in Parma Heights, sentenced for immigration fraud
CLEVELAND (WJW) — A Parma Heights who admitted to lying about being a war criminal when immigrating to the U.S. from Croatia was sentenced to prison for immigration fraud and will be deported.
A judge on Tuesday, Oct. 15, sentenced Jugoslav Vidić, 56, to three years in prison for concealing the charge in order to obtain a green card after he came to the U.S., according to a news release from U.S. Attorney Rebecca Lutzko.
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"Jugoslav Vidić knowingly avoided the truth of his past to enjoy the freedoms and liberties of the United States for over two and a half decades," FBI Cleveland Special Agent in Charge Greg Nelsen is quoted in the release. "[Tuesday's] sentence underscores the work of the FBI and its local, state, federal and international partners and sends a clear message that people in the United States who take part in war crimes, regardless of when or where they occurred, or by masking their involvement, will be identified, investigated and prosecuted."
Vidić, born in Croatia in 1968, was a specially trained officer in a unit supporting ethnic Serbs during the Croatian War of Independence, a bloody conflict that lasted from 1991 — when Croatia declared its independence from Yugoslavia — to 1995, according to Vidić's criminal complaint.
At the time, Vidić worked at a meat-processing factory in the town of Petrinja, in central Croatia, prosecutors said. In August 1991, the plant was visited by newly elected Croatian President Franjo Tudjman, whom TV news cameras saw shaking hands with plant worker Stjepan Komes.
The following month, when ethnic Serb military forces who opposed Croatian independence attacked Petrinja and seized the plant, Vidić allegedly escorted Komes at gunpoint from a group of detained workers. Komes was never seen alive again. His body was later exhumed from a mass grave in the town and identified by his children, according to the complaint.
Authorities alleged Vidić cut off Komes' arm and the man later died, according to the Wednesday news release.
In 1994, Vidić was charged in a Croatian court with Komes' murder in Petrinja years earlier. He was convicted in absentia in 1998, meaning he was not present for the trial. He immigrated to the U.S. as a refugee in 1999.
He was accused of lying about his military experience to a U.S. immigration officer in Romania that year. While seeking permanent residency in the U.S. over the following years, he lied numerous other times about his military experience, as well as when asked if he had participated in any ethnic or politically motivated killings, according to the complaint.
Vidić became a lawful permanent U.S. resident in 2000 and his green card application was approved in 2005, according to authorities.
He also allegedly lied to U.S. Department of Homeland Security investigators who interviewed him in 2017 at his North Royalton home.
"Vidić committed serious human rights violations and was convicted of war crimes in Croatia as a result. Yet, he lied to U.S. immigration officials about his conviction and participation in a violent military force to claim refugee status and obtain a green card — becoming a permanent legal resident of our country — when he was not eligible to do so," Lutzko is quoted in the release. "Those who run away from violent crimes they commit elsewhere in the world and then enter our country by brazenly lying about their past will be held to account, as yesterday's sentence demonstrates. Vidić's deceitful actions are detestable, and unfairly hurt people in need who legitimately seek refuge to flee real harms in their home countries."
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Vidić pleaded guilty to one count of possessing an alien registration card that had been obtained through false statements. In his plea agreement, he admitted to the war crime charge in 1994 and conviction in 1998, and agreed to his court-ordered deportation, according to the release.
"Our communities here in Ohio and across the U.S. are not safe havens for war criminals to escape accountability in their home countries," Katrina Berger, executive associate director of Homeland Security Investigations, is quoted in the release. "It is my hope that this sentencing provides some measure of solace to the victims' families with the knowledge that despite the passage of time, the U.S. will seek justice."
Anyone who has information about human rights violators living in the U.S. is asked to contact Homeland Security investigators at 1-866-DHS-2-ICE (1-866-347-2423) or via a tip form found on the ICE website .
