Sarajevo - By handing a 30-day detention to a prominent convicted war criminal Thursday, a Bosnian court came a step closer to eroding a precedent whereby the country's nationals are never extradited.

The convicted man, Branimir Glavas, is still formally a Croatian lawmaker. On Friday, a Croatian court handed him a 10-year sentence for war crimes against Serbs in the
1990s.

However, anticipating those charges, Glavas fled to Bosnia and claimed Bosnian citizenship last autumn, by virtue of having Bosnian parents. He was apparently certain that his recently acquired Bosnian passport would protect him from extradition. Bosnian laws do not allow the handover of its citizens to other countries.

Glavas, 52, did not even attempt to hide in Bosnia, giving an interview to a local newspaper evening after his sentencing in Zagreb last Friday.

Bosnian authorities brought him in Wednesday, after Croatia's lifted his immunity and issued an international warrant for his arrest. Contrary to the expectations of his attorney, he was first given a one, then a 30-day, detention.

At the same time, though acknowledging that Glavas was a Bosnian citizen since October 2008, the court allowed prosecutors 40 days to prepare an extradition case against him.

"Glavas legally acquired the nationality," the court said in a statement, but inferred that he took the citizenship only to avoid facing justice for crimes he was being tried for at the time.

Should Glavas be extradited, it would set a precedent, as at least 40 people wanted by Croatian law presently live freely in Bosnia, which disallows the extradition of its nationals to other countries.

Croatia sentenced Glavas for the torture and murder of Serbs in Osijek, in eastern Croatia, during his tenure as the regional defence commander in the area.

One of the late Croatian president Franjo Tudjman's closest allies during the country's four-year independence war against the Yugoslav army, he had virtually limitless power in the Osijek area.

Under his reign, dozens of Serbs were killed or disappeared. He was eventually sentenced for several counts of murder and one of torture. He is the first Croatian politician to go on a war crime trial in the country since its independence in 1992.(dpa)