An electrician living in Derby is to be extradited to Croatia to face charges of war crimes allegedly committed during the Yugoslav conflicts of the 1990s.

Milenko Maric, 63, lost an eight-year legal battle to remain in Britain this week after Westminster magistrates’ court ordered the extradition.

Maric, a married father of three, came to Britain more than 20 years ago as an asylum seeker. If found guilty, he faces up to 20 years in a Croatian jail.

Prosecutors in Croatia claim he was part of a militia group that imprisoned and carried out assaults on civilians of non-Serbian ethnicity between August and September 1991 in the Baranya region. One alleged victim, Faranjo Joha, claims he was beaten repeatedly by Maric while in prison, court documents seen by The Times show. Maric and two other men allegedly beat Joha’s “entire body” using electric rubber truncheons. They then robbed him of his clothes, cash, watch and gold ring.

The legal documents allege that Maric, “a member of the militia known as the Secretariat for International Affairs of Beli Manastir, took civilians of non-Serbian ethnic origin resident in the region of Baranya to the prison of the Secretariat, where he would beat them either alone or together with other militiamen”.

Maric was placed on a wanted list in 1997. A European arrest warrant was issued after war criminal hunters traced him to Britain in 2015. Amber Rudd, home secretary at that time, approved the extradition order in 2016.

A trial in Croatia later found him not guilty in absentia, but this was overturned by the country’s supreme court and he was re-arrested in March. Westminster magistrates ordered the extradition this week, the Daily Mirror reported. A date for his extradition has not been set.

Maric, who denies the charges, has claimed he worked for the Serbian Krajina police between 1991 and 1994. Serbian Krajina was a self-proclaimed Serb breakaway state within Croatia. He said he had emigrated to Britain in 1999 after being conscripted into the Serbian army to fight in Kosovo.

Approached by The Times, Maric said that Croatian authorities had singled him out because he was a well-known handball player. “My dearest wish is to go back to Croatia to see my mother, who is very old, but in the circumstances this is not possible. I have had one trial and I should not have another. It would not be fair.” His lawyer, Tahir Hussain of Newgate Solicitors, said: “We have lodged an appeal and are confident that it will be successful.”