SWAMPSCOTT — Nearly one month after federal agents arrested Kemal “Kemo” Mrndzic outside his Summit Estates condominium on Paradise Road, the alleged prison-camp supervisor was indicted by a federal grand jury in Boston this week.
Mrndzic, 51, was allegedly a guard supervisor at the Celebici camp, a notorious prison camp in Bosnia and Herzegovina during the Bosnian War in the 1990s.
The United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) found that guards at Celebici committed numerous murders and rapes, and engaged in torture and other forms of persecution of Serb prisoners held at the camp.
The indictment claims that in a written statement provided to ICTY investigators, Mrndzic denied all of the alleged war crimes, admitting only that one of the prison’s guards killed a prisoner who tried to escape.
“I have never seen any mistreatment, beatings, killings, rapes. I have even never heard about these incidents” Mrndzic said. “The prisoners were provided three meals a day. The food was similar to the rations we received. Lunch and dinner were hot meals.”
Celebici survivors, the indictment said, claimed Mrndzic participated both directly and indirectly in acts of abuse such as beating prisoners, threatening prisoners, and positioning prisoners for other guards to beat them.
Under Mrndzic’s leadership, the indictment claims hundreds of Celebici prisoners were cramped shoulder-to-shoulder for hours on the concrete floor of a large metal hangar known as “Hangar 6.” There, they were allegedly fed minimal rations, forced to defecate in a trench behind the hangar in front of armed guards, and rarely allowed to wash themselves.
Guards were also alleged to have forced prisoners to sleep shoulder-to-shoulder in a long, lightless underground tunnel known as “Tunnel 9.”
On May 17, prosecutors alleged that in his refugee application and interview, Mrndzic falsely claimed he fled his home after he was captured, interrogated, and abused by Serb forces, and could not return home out of fear of future persecution. He was admitted to the U.S. as a refugee in 1999 and became a naturalized American citizen in 2009.
“This prosecution demonstrates that the Department of Justice and our law-enforcement partners will spare no effort in detecting and prosecuting those who engage in wartime persecution and then cross our borders to conceal their history. Emigrating to the United States is a privilege and if you conceal your criminal conduct to deceive your way into this country, you will ultimately be detected,” Acting United States Attorney Joshua Levy said.
Mrndzic was charged with using a fraudulently-obtained U.S. passport, possessing and using a fraudulently-obtained naturalization certificate and fraudulently-obtained Social Security card, making a false statement to federal law-enforcement officers, and engaging in a scheme to conceal his involvement in persecution during the Bosnian War. He was released on a $30,000 bail.
“Mrndzic is alleged to have lied about his past as a supervisor of camp guards at a Bosnian prison camp known to be the site of violence and persecution, concealing these facts to flee to the United States and begin a new life,” Acting Special Agent in Charge of Homeland Security Investigations in New England Michael Krol said.
Mrndzic will be remotely arraigned on June 28 at 12 p.m. before Magistrate Judge Mary Page Kelley.
