SARAJEVO, June 15 (Xinhua) -- Bosnia and Herzegovina's (BiH) state court ruled against the request to extradite the former boss of GNK Dinamo Zagreb football club Zdravko Mamic to Croatia on Friday.
A Croatian court found Mamic, who has dual Croatian and BiH citizenship, guilty of financial crimes, and sentenced him to six and a half years in prison in a verdict read out at the Osijek County Court on June 6.
The day before the pronouncement of the verdict, Mamic fled to BiH. BiH State Investigation and Protection Agency (SIPA) police detained Mamic Thursday on the basis of an Interpol warrant.
During the hearing here on Friday, Mamic said that he is "a proud citizen of BiH and does not want to be extradited to Croatia."
Mamic's lawyer Zdravko Rajic told reporters that BiH court had decided to suspend extradition proceedings because Mamic has BiH citizenship.
According to law scholars, the final verdict in this case could be stretched out until the end of 2019. If he is still found guilty, Mamic could serve the jail sentence in BiH, as a result of an agreement between the two countries.
