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Nicholas Ribic (born 1974) is a Canadian who fought in the Bosnian Serb Army where he was also known as Nikola Ribić. 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 Serb-held territories in Bosnia by NATO forces. He was the first Canadian to be prosecuted for a hostage-taking committed outside the country.〔CBC, (Nicholas Ribic granted bail ), November 10, 2000〕 Ribic was charged under a section of the Criminal Code on jurisdiction that had never been used before that allows Canada to claim jurisdiction over kidnapping and hostage-taking offences of or by a Canadian committed outside the country.〔 Ribic's hostage was a fellow Canadian, Capt. Patrick Rechner, working in Bosnia as an unarmed U.N. military observer. The May 1995 worldwide television and newspaper coverage showed the shocking photo of a distraught Capt. Rechner chained to a lightning rod at an ammunition bunker in the Bosnian Serb stronghold of Pale. Ribic was in the uniform of a Bosnian Serb soldier, wielding an AK47 rifle, in the company of other Serb soldiers. Held for 24 days, the photo of Capt. Rechner became a symbol of the United Nations' incapacity to deal with Serb military offensives.〔 ==Hostage taking== Ribic travelled to Republika Srpska in 1992, ostensibly because he "want() 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 Bosnian Muslims and the Bosnian 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 Ribic 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.〔〔Toronto Star, "Bosnian Serbs holding peacekeepers hostage", May 27, 1995〕 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. Ribic 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,〔Toronto Star, "Serbs seize 8 Canadians", May 28, 1995〕 and were voluntarily returned to the United Nations office on June 18.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Nicholas Ribic」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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