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Police cars in the St. Gallen canton in Switzerland. Photo: EPA-EFE/GIAN EHRENZELLER.

Zoran Pantic, who participated in killing six members of a family in 1993 and then escaped from prison and went to live in Switzerland under a false name, was extradited to Bosnia and Herzegovina and has been back behind bars in Bijeljina since Monday evening, local media reported on Tuesday.

Mirna Miljanovic, the head of the Republika Srpska Interior Ministry’s public relations department told Srna news agency that police located Pantic in Switzerland “after a couple of years of intensive work”.

Pantic was sentenced to 12 years and 10 months in prison for his role in the killings of the Isic family in the Bijeljina area in October 1993.

Pantic and others first promised the Isic family that they would transfer them to Serbia for a fee.

They left with the family in a truck, but during the journey, Pantic and his accomplices made a deal with each other to kill the family and steal their money and belongings.

They took the family to a village called Medjasi, where one of the accomplices had a weekend cottage. He killed two women and a child with a semi-automatic rifle and then gave it to Pantic, who killed a male, female and a child.

They threw the corpses into the River Drina, returned to Bijeljina and split the money and belongings they stole among themselves.

After he was sentenced, Pantic then escaped the county prison in Bijelijna in October 1995.

He went to Switzerland and took on his brother’s identity, calling himself Dalibor Pantic and claiming he was a Serbian citizen.

He then married a Swiss citizen, took her last name and applied for citizenship.

Prior to his extradition, Pantic contacted lawyer Miodrag Stojanovic, who was one of the judges in Pantic’s trial in the mid-1990s, and told him that he would ask for a review of the judgment.

Pantic, who confessed to the murders at the time, now claims that his confession was made under duress.

Stojanovic said however that he knew nothing about that.

“He confessed his participation in committing that criminal act and based on that information and other evidence 25 years ago, we judged and found him guilty and sentenced him,” Stojanovic told BIRN.