Written by: Izet Perviz
Source: Stav.ba
Nowhere is justice as slow as on the road to Goražde. To this day, not a single conviction has been passed for crimes committed against Bosniaks in the area of the pre-war municipality of Goražde, although the whole world has witnessed the thousands of grenades that members of the RS Army threw at this city during the Aggression against Bosnia and Herzegovina. The names of 184 children killed during the 1,336 days of the siege are written on the monument to the murdered children in front of the House of Culture, on a black stone slab that obscures the horizon behind the silhouettes enraptured in the carefreeness of children's play. In the book Crimes against children of Goražde during the siege of 1992-1995. author Muamer Džananović, senior associate of the Institute for Research of Crimes Against Humanity and International Law of the University of Sarajevo, also states that 400 children were wounded during the siege of this heroic city.
The army of RS killed children in Goražde with grenades, sniping, in houses, in apartments, in yards, on playgrounds, in the hospital and in front of the hospital, even in columns on the way to the mythical Grebak pass, which for the residents of the besieged Goražde was a road of salvation. Most children were killed during March and April 1994, Džananović states in the book, during the "Zvijezda 94" operation, which the Army of RS undertook on the free part of the municipality. Immediately at the beginning of the attack, on March 30, 1994, sister and brother, eleven-year-old Medisa Zukić and eight-year-old Haris Zukić, were killed.
In that operation, 20 children were killed and 50 were wounded. Hajro Alajbegović, a 19-month-old baby, died due to lack of food, Adnan Šubo, a baby less than two years old, was killed by a sniper shot on August 18, 1992, seventeen-year-old Admir Kešmer was killed on May 31, 1995 by shrapnel from a grenade in the hospital grounds, sixteen-year-old Amela On January 31, 1993, Lihić was killed in a convoy moving towards Grepko, and her seventeen-year-old sister Sanela was seriously wounded... And so 178 more times, but no one has yet been convicted, at least for the murders of the youngest.
The first indictment that fully refers to the crimes of the RS Army committed in the area of the municipality of Goražde was filed 24 years after the signing of the Dayton Agreement. On March 11, 2019, the BiH Prosecutor's Office charged Lazar Mutlak, a former member of the Territorial Defense Staff with the so-called Srpski Goražde. The indictment charges him that on May 25, 1992, "by using force and threatening her life, he committed rape and sexual abuse on the victim - a woman of Bosniak nationality, which left severe and lasting physical and psychological consequences on the victim." The indictment against Lazar Mutlak was forwarded to the Cantonal Court in Goražde. This court confirmed the indictment, as stated by Nermina Tiro, head of the registry office, in her answer dated January 29, 2021.
There is no one to judge in Gorazde. In his answer, Tiro states that the Cantonal Court in Goražde, apart from this one, "has no other war crimes cases pending". Her words were confirmed by Milijana Bjelović, president of the Cantonal Court in Goražde, in a statement for BIRN BiH on December 14, 2021. Bjelović then said that the indictment was delivered to Mutlak and that he requested to be tried in Serbia, adding that they do not have the conditions for issuing a warrant, that they do not have the conditions for questioning protected witnesses, and since they have only three judges, they do not have the conditions either for the establishment of a judicial panel.
In order not to get the wrong impression that war crimes were never tried before the Cantonal Court in Goražde, one should take a look at the court archives. It states that two proceedings were conducted before this court, both against members of the Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Asim Muratović and Ćazim Ajanović were acquitted before the Cantonal Court in Goražde of the charge that, as members of the ARBiH, in their capacity as guards of the Municipal Prison in the building of the MUP in Goražde, from September to the beginning of November 1993, they physically abused the prisoners of war Dušan Vuković and Milorad Marić on two occasions . First, by the verdict of October 21, 2016, Asim Muratović and Ćazim Ajanović were acquitted, so that verdict was revoked by the Supreme Court of FBiH on August 18, 2017, and the final acquittal was pronounced on November 10, 2017.
Hedin Džambegović was acquitted by the second verdict of the Cantonal Court in Goražde. The court established that in the summer of 1992, Džambegović did not come to the village of Crkvine, from which the men of military age were taken, and intimidated the civilians of Serbian nationality who remained in the village, among whom there were people over 70 years old. Džambegović was arrested by SIPA members in December 2014. The Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina confirmed the indictment on January 6, 2015, and on February 2, 2015, transferred the case to the Cantonal Court in Goražde. The acquittal of Džambegović has been final since December 13, 2018.
However, the following case shows that a trial often does not take place even when there is someone to judge. The indictment against Brana Petković, the former commander of the TO of the Serbian municipality of Goražde, was forwarded by the Prosecutor's Office of BiH to the Court of BiH. Although the indictment was confirmed on November 23, 2020, the trial has not yet started. Brane Petković is also in Serbia. He did not appear at the first plea hearing scheduled for March 10, 2022, nor at the one scheduled for June 16 this year, and the court sentenced him to three years in custody and ordered the issuance of a warrant. Some media wrote that Brane Petković lives in Kragujevac, in Serbia.
The indictment accuses Brana Petković of failing to take necessary and reasonable measures to prevent the commission of a war crime as a superior to the commander of the Regional Headquarters of the Territorial Defense (RJŠTO) of the Serbian Municipality of Goražde and to the commanders and members of the company of the Municipal Headquarters. The indictment states that during the infantry attack on the Bosniak population of the village of Lazje (Kokino Selo) on May 22, 1992, at least 16 people were killed, among them a large number of women and children, and seven men were captured, who were taken in an unknown direction, and their the remains were found on March 17, 1993 in the Šišeta mass grave.
The first trial based on the indictment, which exclusively deals with crimes committed on the territory of the pre-war municipality of Goražde, began on March 17, 2022. Miroslav Milović and Borislav Lasica finally sat on the bench of the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The indictment of the Prosecutor's Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina from December 30, 2021 charges them with having committed a war crime against the civilian population, organizing a group of people and incitement to commit the crime of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes, that is, as commanders of units of the RS Army, Miroslav Milović as the commander of the RJŠTO of the Serbian municipality of Goražde, and Borislav Lasica as the commander of the TO "Potkamen" company, on May 22, 1992, they led the attack on the village of Lazje (Kokino village), in which about 30 Bosniak civilians, mostly old men, women and children, were killed. Miroslav Milović and Borislav Lasica are defending themselves from freedom, and they are prohibited from traveling, meeting with certain persons and must report to the police regularly.
For the attack on the village of Lazje, the only person accused and later acquitted was Dragan Šekarić, who was sentenced to 17 years before the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina for the crime in Višegrad.
On the A-list, which the Prosecutor's Office of the Hague Tribunal handed over to the Prosecutor's Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina almost twenty years ago, on which there are the names of the accused against whom there is sufficient evidence to file an indictment, in addition to Brana Petrović, there is another member of the RS Army suspected of the crime committed in Goražde, but no indictment was brought against him either.