Article content continued

The Federal Court read translated court records from Serbia about a drunken brawl in Leskovac, in southern Serbia, in 1994.

Vujicic was named as an instigator of what seemed to be a large, nighttime fight involving several men, many of them later charged alongside him. Vujicic had been drinking, but his level of intoxication did not prevent him from understanding the significance of his actions, according to the evidence from Serbia.

During the brawl, Vujicic fired a gun in the direction of Dragan Stojanovic. A bullet hit Stojanovic in the heart and he bled to death, court heard.

Vujicic’s claim of self-defence was rejected by the Serbian court. Not only was he among the aggressors, forensic evidence about the gunshot wound did not support his stance, court heard.

Vujicic was convicted of manslaughter in 1994, and again after a retrial in 1998. He was not immediately taken into custody, however.

He left court and, not long after, applied to come to Canada.

At the recent hearing in Canada into his citizenship status, Vujicic claimed the fact he was not taken to jail left him confused as to what had happened in court. He said he didn’t realize he had been convicted and sentenced.

Instead of talking to his trial lawyer about it, he applied to come to Canada.

He managed to be accepted into Canada despite the conviction after he presented two official certificates indicating he had no convictions against him — one was from Bosnia and one from Montenegro; neither of them from Serbia, where his conviction took place. All three countries were once part of Yugoslavia before its breakup.