War criminal found in Kentucky

Apparently, a former Croatian army soldier was hiding out from Bosnian war crimes investigators in the Bluegrass State right up until this week....

Quote :

STANTON, Ky. – If Azra Basic needed a place to run from the bloody aftermath of the breakup of Yugoslavia, her small-town Kentucky neighbors said she found it. The Croatian woman locals knew as "Issabella" settled years ago in this rural, hilly area and took jobs bathing elderly nursing home patients and working at a sandwich factory.

This week, acquaintances were shocked to hear the secret that Bosnian war crimes investigators said Basic has been hiding for two decades. As a soldier in the Croatian army, she killed a prisoner and tortured others by forcing them to drink human blood and gasoline, authorities said. She was arrested on Tuesday by federal agents.

"She's a lovely person, very diligent in her work," said 88-year-old Henrietta Kirchner, who was one of Basic's patients at the Stanton Nursing Center for about a week when she was recovering from a broken leg.

According to court documents, the 52-year-old Basic (BOSH) is charged with fatally stabbing a prisoner in the neck in 1992 during the bloody conflict in eastern Europe. Court documents accuse her of numerous other atrocities, including: setting a prisoner ablaze, pulling out prisoners' fingernails with pliers, ripping off a man's ear with pliers and carving crosses and the letter "S" into another man's flesh.


The accusations were "very shocking" to 44-year-old former neighbor Brian Rice.

"She's a pretty nice person," said Rice, who lived near her for about two years until she moved in November. "If I was standing here right now and ... she drove by, she would throw her hand up and if the window was down, she would speak and say 'hi' by my name."

It's unclear why Basic chose to settle down in Stanton, a town about 45 miles east of Lexington known for its annual corn festival. But Rice said if she was looking for a place to get away from her past, she had found it.