MOSCOW, January 9. /TASS/. Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a decree to grant Russian citizenship to Ratko Samac, a one time junior officer in the Yugoslav Army, whose extradition was sought by Bosnia and Herzegovina.

In 2016, according to media reports, the Russian Prosecutor General’s Office refused to send Samac back to Bosnia and Herzegovina. The former Serbian Army soldier previously arrived in Kurgan for treatment in 1999 and was arrested in the south Urals city at Sarajevo’s request for alleged war crimes he committed in 1993.

Russian election chief Ella Pamfilova, who then held the post of the country’s human rights ombudswoman, asked prosecutors to conduct a probe into the extradition request.