Bosnia’s state court has stripped convicted war criminal Vinko Martinovic ‘Stela’, who is also being sought by Croatia on murder charges, of his travel documents and banned him from travelling outside the country.

Martinovic was arrested in the southern city of Mostar on Wednesday, based on a Croatian warrant.

The Croatian Supreme Court convicted Martinovic to 10 years in prison for the murder of Jasmina Djukic in 1996. In 2017, just a few minutes before the final verdict was announced he escaped to BiH, since he possesses citizenship in the country which protected him from being extradited.

Croatia asked for Martinovic to be extradited and the BiH Court has still not made an official decision on the matter.

Martinovic’s lawyer argued that there is no grounds to extradited him since the agreement on extradition between BiH and Croatia was signed in 2012, while the crime he is accused of in Croatia took place in 1996.

Martinovic was, alongside Mladen Naletilic, convicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) for war crimes committed against Bosniaks in BiH and served 18 years in prison. He was released in 2012.