Goran Jelisić

On 21 December 2011, his wife, Monika Karan-Ilić (aka Monika Simeunović), was detained on suspicion of having committed war crimes against non-Serbs at the Luka camp. A native of Brčko, she had been in custody since 21 December 2011. She was found guilty of having participated in torture, inhumane treatment and infliction of suffering on Bosniak and Croat civilians in the Luka camp and Brčko police station between May and June 1992, when she was a teenager. Her sentence was reduced to two-and-a-half years of prison in 2013.

Jelisić's trial is considered important for setting a high standard of evidence for charges of genocide. His was also significant for being one of only three people to admit to their crimes before the Hague tribunal (as of 2004).

In 1999, Jelisić pleaded guilty to the charges of crimes against humanity and violating the customs of war. He was acquitted on the charge of genocide as the court did not believe the prosecution had proved this beyond reasonable doubt. He was sentenced to 40 years' imprisonment. The same sentence was confirmed by the appeals chamber. The sentence was at that time the most severe given by the Hague, superseding the 20-year ruling against Duško Tadić. The court also suggested Jelisić receive psychiatric treatment. In 2001, the prosecution requested a retrial on Jelisić's dismissed charge of genocide, but an appeals court upheld his 40-year sentence. On 29 May 2003, Jelisić was transferred to Italy to serve the remainder of his sentence with credit for time served since his 1998 arrest.

On 22 January 1998, Jelisić was apprehended in Serb-dominated Bijeljina by Task Force Razorback—a joint CIA–DOD unit attached to Operation Amber Star. This was the culmination of a months-long intelligence operation (codenamed Operation Amber Light) led by Lt Col Rick Francona. The Navy SEAL team which executed the arrest was led by Ryan Zinke, who would later be elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. Jelisić's apartment was surrounded by U.S. forces, and he was taken without incident. This capture was the first performed by U.S. forces against a Bosnian war criminal (though U.S. forces served as backup for Dutch and British forces in the previous year). After his capture, Jelisić was transferred to a U.S. base at Tuzla, taken into custody by an FBI Special Agent and flown to The Hague.

He was released in February 1992 with the opportunity to volunteer for Republika Srpska's war effort. He joined the Republika Srpska police force that month. In May, he was sent to a Brčko police station.

Goran Jelisić (Serbian Cyrillic: Горан Јелисић; born 7 June 1968) is a Bosnian Serb former police officer who was found guilty of having committed crimes against humanity and violated the customs of war by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) at the Luka camp in Brčko during the Bosnian War. Jelisić called himself the "Serb Adolf Hitler" and admitted that his "motivation and goal was to kill Muslims".

Jelisić was born in 1968 in Bijeljina, SR Bosnia and Herzegovina, Yugoslavia. a town that was at the time 40% Muslim. Born to a working mother, he was raised primarily by his grandmother, and he had a variety of Serb and Muslim friends. Prior to the war, Jelisić worked as a farmhand and enjoyed fishing. During his trial, members of his fishing groups appeared to defend him as character witnesses. After committing cheque fraud in Bosnia, he was imprisoned for several months.