03. 02. 10. - 16:00

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03. 02. 10. - 16:00

Award-winning writer fears deportation

An award-winning Serb writer who helped expose the Srebrenica massacre has said he is facing certain death of he is deported from Austria back to his homeland.

Jovan Mirilo, who won the Bruno Kreisky Prize – an award for politically-themed books named after late Social Democratic (SPÖ) Chancellor Bruno Kreisky - in 2007, said today (Weds) in a radio interview: "I am sure I will have no chance to survive if I have to return to Serbia."

He added that his family and he had come to Austria after he had received death threats in Serbia.

Mirilo won the prize for his alleged role in publicising the massacre of 8,000 Bosnian Muslims by Serbs in July 1995 in Srebrenica in eastern Bosnia-Herzegovina. He claimed he had copied a video documenting the massacre and ensured it had reached the war-crimes tribunal in The Hague.

The magazine Falter has reported that Mirilo and his family face deportation after their asylum application was rejected after a first examination.

Falter added that officials who examined the application had rejected his claim he would be in danger in Serbia and had based their decision in part on an anonymous report that cast doubt on Mirilo’s claim to have copied the massacre video.

The Interior Ministry has declined to comment on the case. The asylum court will hear Mirilo’s appeal of the rejection of his family’s asylum application. His wife and he have an eight-year-old daughter.

Austrian Times

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