U.S. officials are seeking to revoke the naturalized citizenship of two convicted war criminals, including a Yugoslavian woman now living in Oregon who participated in a 1993 massacre of Bosnian Croats.

A civil complaint filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Portland alleges that Sammy Rasema Yetisen, also known as Rasema Handanovic or "Zolja,'' 45, was part of an elite unit of the Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina that attacked the village of Trusina on April 16, 1993, in what is known as the Trusina massacre.

Sammy Rasema Yetisen

The unit targeted Bosnian Croats in the village because of their Christian religion and Croat ethnicity, according to the complaint.

Yetisen was accused of participating in the murder of at least six of the victims, including three civilians and three prisoners of war.

After the war ended, Yetisen entered the United States as a refugee by claiming she was fleeing the atrocities that she, in fact, had committed, the complaint alleges. She became a permanent U.S. resident in 1998 and a U.S. citizen in 2002.

It wasn't until 2011 that Yetisen's participation in the 1993 massacre came to light after investigations by the governments of Bosnia and Herzogovina. At their request, the United States extradited Yetisen in 2011 to stand trial for the alleged war crimes.

In April 2012, she pleaded guilty in a Bosnian-Herzogovinian court to war crimes against civilians and prisoners of war and was sentenced to five years and six months in prison. After completing the sentence, she returned to the United States.

She was last known to be living in Beaverton, according to the complaint.

"War criminals will find no safe haven or shelter within the United States,'' Attorney General Jeff Sessions said in a statement. "For too long, we have tolerated egregious fraud in our refugee program, our immigration system and the naturalization process. This administration will hold alleged fraudsters accountable.''

In 2011, Beaverton neighbors described Yetisen as an unemployed single mother of a 12-year-old boy who often kept to herself and recently started receiving disability for her fibromyalgia. At that time, she shared an apartment with her son, parents and sister, they said.

Yetisen didn't immediately return a message left at her home.

A companion civil complaint was filed in the U.S. District of Columbia against another convicted war criminal, Edin Dzeko, 46, who also was part of the same army and involved in the Trusina village massacre.

The Bosnian court found that both Yetisen and Dzeko played key roles in the massacre, participating in a firing squad. Dzeko also killed a disabled elderly man, and then shot the man's wife in the back because she wouldn't stop crying, according to the civil complaint.

Dzeko was convicted in June 2014 and is still serving his sentence in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The complaints allege that both concealed and misrepresented their criminal history, military service and crimes throughout their immigration proceedings.

They each swore that they had never "ordered, assisted or otherwise participated in the persecution of any person because of race, religion or political opinion, when in fact they had specifically targeted and executed Croats, a primarily Christian group, according to the complaints.

"The United States is a refuge for those fleeing violence and the atrocities of war, not those responsible for these unthinkable acts,'' U.S. Attorney Billy J. Williams, said in a statement. "I applaud the hard work and coordination of law enforcement across the country that culminated in these lawsuits.''

The complaints were filed jointly by attorneys in the U.S. Attorney's Office and the U.S. Department of Justice's national security and immigration litigation units.

-- Maxine Bernstein

mbernstein@oregonian.com

503-221-8212

@maxoregonian