Nicholas Ribich

An ethnic Serb, Nikola "Nicholas" Ribich was born in Alberta, Canada and fought in the Bosnian Serb Army for several years. In 1995, he took four United Nations peacekeepers hostage and used them as a human shield to try to force a halt to the ongoing bombing of Bosnia by NATO forces.

He was the first Canadian to be prosecuted for a hostage-taking committed outside the country.

In Serbia
Ribich travelled to Serbia in 1992, ostensibly because he "want[ed] to fight Muslims". There he joined the Bosnian Serb Army as a volunteer.

On May 24, 1995, British General Rupert Smith, leading a United Nations contingent, warned both the Bosnians and Serbs in Pale to cease street fighting and shelling, or risk an air strike from NATO aircraft. The Serbian faction ignored the warning, and was hit by a retaliatory airstrike which dropped two bombs on their base ten kilometres south of the city the next day.

The day after the bombs were dropped, it is alleged that Ribich and other Bosnian Serbs walked into the United Nations office with AK-47s and took several staff members hostage, including Russians Capt. Zidlik and Capt. Pavel Teterevsk, and Canadian Capt. Patrick Rechner. They demanded that Major Guy Lavender phone Smith, and subsequently warned the General that bombing of Serb targets had to cease or the hostages would be killed.

The hostages were taken to the Serbian base south of the city, where Rechner was handcuffed to a lightning rod outside a warehouse being used to store mortar rounds. Ribich then allegedly phoned the United Nations and warned that "The three UN observers are at the site of the warehouse. Any more bombings, they'll be the first to go.".

The prisoners were noted to have been "treated well" during their confinement, and were voluntarily returned to the United Nations office on June 18.

In Canada
The majority of Serbs perceived the Nichlas Ribich case this way: Politics can manifest itself in many ways for those who are born in Canada and yet feel kinship for their ancestral home and people, let alone those who are not. Ribich had to choose one country over another. He made a conscientious decision, but got caught in the maelstorm of war and uncertainty, trying to make sense of the chaos that surrounded him in both the country of his birth and his ancestral homeland.

The Canadian Government, of course, saw it differently.

Arrest and trial
In 2000, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police traced Ribich down to his new home in Germany, and he was arrested in February. Nine months later, he was extradited to face charges in Canada, where he was defended by lawyer D'Arcy DePoe. Here Ribich was facing four charges of hostage taking under Canadian law for his alleged involvement to prevent air strikes by NATO on Bosnian Serb enclaves during the NATO bombing of Bosnia in May 1995. The Canadian Criminal Code was amended in 1989 to allow for prosecutions of hostage-taking committed abroad, but this was believed to be the first time a Canadian was being prosecuted under this new provision, which provided for maximum sentence of life in prison, if found guilty.

His trial began in October 2002, However, the trial unraveled three months later when judge Douglas Cunningham of the Ontario Supreme Court declared a mistrial on 20 January 2003, after only nine days of testimony. Ribich was later tried again in 2005 for hostage taking and allegedly threatening death. His layer, D'Arcy DePoe, called it "one of the most unusual criminal trials in Canadian history" as it was the first time a Canadian had been tried in this manner. "While this is an unusual form of trespass, it is submitted that NATO dropping 2,000-pound bombs on this property was clearly a trespass." This time, there was no mistrial declared and Ribich was convicted. Two witnesses from the Canadian Forces, known only as Witness A and Witness B, were only allowed to testify by transcript during Ribich's 2005 trial. D'Arcy objeced to this but to no avail.