Azra Basic, Bosnian War Criminal Found In Kentucky, Sentenced To 14 Years

A 58-year-old woman who killed at least one man and tortured countless others was sentenced to 14 years in prison for her role as the “mistress of life and death” during the 1990s Bosnian war.

Azra Basic was convicted by a war crimes court in Sarajevo Wednesday, which comes years after she was arrested at a Nestle plant in Kentucky in 2011. Basic fled Europe after the 1992-1995 and had become a naturalized U.S. citizen despite her hidden past of “killing and inhumane treatment infliction of great pain and violation of bodily integrity and health” on imprisoned Bosnian Serb civilians.

She was born, Azra Bašić, on June 22, 1959 in Rijeka , Yugoslavia.

Prosecutors in the Sarajevo war crimes court detailed how she forced prisoners under Bosnian-Croat detainment to perform sadistic tasks and she routinely tortured the civilians. They alleged that she forced prisoners to crawl over broken glass, she carved crosses into prisoners’ foreheads, forced a man to drink gasoline before setting his face on fire and even stabbed one man in the neck until he died.

Basic left for the U.S. in 1994 before settling in Kentucky under an alias and getting a job at the Nestle plant. Neighbors and co-workers in the U.S. described Basic to news outlets as “big-hearted” and “a very nice lady.”

After Basic was tracked dow and arrested in 2011, she fought extradition back to Europe until 2016, when a federal judge approved her to be deported for trial.