A North Carolina man was sentenced to 18 months in prison for obtaining a green card by making false claims and statements.
Milan Trisic, a Bosnian Serb, knowingly concealed his military service in the Bratunac Brigade, a unit in the Army of the Serb Republic, concealed his criminal activity in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and lied about his whereabouts during the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina in the early and mid-1990s.
He was awarded permanent residency in the U.S. in November 2016 as a result of his fraudulent application.
Trisic previously pleaded guilty on Dec. 18, 2017, to possession of unlawfully obtained documents. Upon completion of his term of imprisonment, Trisic will be transferred to ICE custody for removal to Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The case was investigated by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), with support from ICE’s Human Rights Violators and War Crimes Center (HRVWCC).
As part of his plea of guilty, Trisic admitted that he served in the Army of the Serb Republic as a member of the Bratunac Brigade during various tours of duty between April 1992 and January 1996, at a time when Bosnia and Herzegovina was in the midst of a civil war. Due to its proximity to Serbia, forces both aligned with and from Serbia began a violent ethnic expulsion campaign in 1992 against the non-Serbian population in and around Bratunac. Trisic admitted that he engaged in various unlawful activities while serving with the Bratunac Brigade, such as the unlawful beating, detention and transportation of Muslim prisoners. Additionally, Trisic admitted that the Bratunac Brigade, operating primarily in eastern Bosnia and Herzegovina, was one of the military units responsible for the July 1995 Srebrenica massacre that resulted in the deaths of between 7,000 and 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men.
“ICE Homeland Security Investigations in Charlotte, supported by ICE’s Human Rights Violators and War Crimes Center, worked for many years to pursue this case and uncover the facts about the human rights violations this individual committed,” said ICE Deputy Director Thomas Homan. “We thank our many partners at the Department of Justice for their tireless work in prosecuting this case. With this case and many others like it, the United States has demonstrated that we will not serve as a safe haven for those who commit egregious acts that violate basic human rights.”
