Dani, Sarajevo, Federation Bosnia-Hercegovina, B-H, January 7 2000

On the eve of the New Year the Cantonal Court in Sarajevo reminded the public of the "Kazani case", issuing a verdict in the case against Suad Omanovic. Omanovic was sentenced to three years in prison as an accomplice in two murders. His trial was delayed since at the time of the trial of the majority of the accused he had been on the run. Including this sentence, the Court sentenced all the accused from the former Tenth Mountain Brigade of the Army of Bosnia-Hercegovina to 33 years and eight months in prison. Thereby the local judiciary put an end to the actions of some members of the aforementioned unit under the command of Musan Topalovic Caco against civilians.

A continuation of the process against some of Caco's followers could take place in the International Tribunal in the Hague during this year. As we have found out, the Tribunal is showing a lot of interest for the "Kazani case" and, allegedly, has been investigating the case for more than a year. The evidence is coming both from the Sarajevo judiciary and the families of the victims, which apparently first brought the case to the attention of the Tribunal.

Lukic's Withdrawal

Namely, the indictment issued against 16 soldiers of the Tenth Mountain Brigade by district military prosecutor Ljubomir Lukic, mentions names of ten murdered individuals, while the investigators from the Hague, allegedly, know of several tens of victims whose lives ended in that ravine on the Trebevic Mountain. Many parents, brothers and sisters provided evidence that members of the Tenth Mountain Brigade had taken away their loved ones in the first two years of the war after which there is no information about their fate. They believe that those civilians were taken to Kazani. Some of them, as the Serbs who were forced to dig trenches on the Trebevic Mountain testify, were tortured for days and finally murdered, while others were sent to the front lines to serve as a "live shield" and move the positions of the Tenth Mountain Brigade forward by digging. Many of them perished while doing that...

The attitude of the Tribunal's prosecution office is that those who ordered and executed orders in connection with abuse of civilians have violated the Geneva convention and committed a war crime against humanity. Moreover, by doing that they also violated rules and customs of war. Prosecutor Lukic had a similar attitude to that of the Tribunal's prosecutors when he issued the indictment against a group of members of the Tenth Mountain Brigade. He, namely, qualified the acts as a war crime against civilian population. However, he later dropped that charge from the indictment and charged the accused (except Samir Bejtic) with an "ordinary" murder "committed in an underhanded and cruel manner".

All of that indicates that prosecutor Lukic was under huge pressure, which influenced the reduction of charges in the indictment. It seems that at the lime Lukic was afraid for his life and lives of the members of his family, so that he used the first opportunity to leave Sarajevo, leaving the case to a different military prosecutor.

The 1994 trial in connection with the murders of civilians at Kazani, because of frequent outbursts from the accused and audience (mostly relatives of the accused), and a parade of some attorneys, had the appearance of everything else but a regular trial. This journalist attended as a correspondent the hearings in the large hall of the District Military Court at the "Ramiz Salcin" barracks in Sarajevo. That was a very unpleasant experience, since the audience also heckled the journalists.

33 Years in Prison

Also, because of a failure to report a crime or a perpetrator of a crime, accused Senad Hasic, Sabahudin Ziga, Samir Seferovic, Omer Tandza, Esad Raonic, Samir Ljubovic, Senad Haracic and Armin Hodzic were sentenced to ten months in prison each. They have already served these sentence.

Out of all the accused from the Tenth Mountain Brigade, the aforementioned Bejtic is the only one to so far escape justice, but the end to his run came in Germany where he was arrested because of common crime. A request for his extradition has been submitted, and the Hague Tribunal has also expressed interest in this suspect. Sejo Kadric and Asif Alibasic are still on the run.

According to the rules of the road adopted in Rome, courts in the countries of origin of war crimes suspects may, after obtaining an approval from the Tribunal, try war crimes cases. In case of the trial of the members of the Tenth Mountain Brigade, there was no approval since during the trial the aforementioned rules did not exist. In the end, the group from the Tenth Brigade was not charged with war crimes but only with murder and accessory to murder. Because of that, based on various legal interpretations, the Hague Tribunal has the right to fully take over the "Kazani case" and demand extradition of any persons it indicts in the future. In is common knowledge that the Hague is not satisfied with the sentences given to the accused from the Tenth brigade at the trial from 1996 and that they also do not consider the sentence given to the accused Omanovic adequate. The court sentenced Omanovic to a three year prison term, which is far below the maximum sentence for an accessory in a murder (ten years in prison).

Suffering of Vucurevic Brothers

The interest of the Hague Tribunal for this case is also spurred by the fact that totally innocent people suffered on the Trebevic Mountain, only because they were Serbs or Croats. For example, there was absolutely no reason for Caco to arrest and kill married couple Ana and Vasilije Lavriv from Pionirska Street, nor Milena Draskovic since all of them were elderly people without any interest in politics. Vucurevic brothers from Skenderija Street were arrested by Caco's followers only because their surname is similar to the surname of the nationalist from Trebinje, Vucurovic. The difference is in only one letter, but that did not mean anything to certain members of the Tenth Brigade and both brothers were murdered. Their unfortunate father for days did not know what to do with himself.

In his book Never Again Together [Nikad Vise Zajedno], colleague Vlado Mrkic described the death of Bozidar Sljivic, a Serb from the Stari Grad Municipality, married to [a Muslim-Bosniak woman] Behireta. She said: "They killed him because he is a Serb and because they thought that no one would care..." Mrkic could have ended up just like Sljivic but he was more fortunate in those fateful war-time days.

We shall probably never find out how many non-Bosniaks Caco's soldiers illegally arrested, then robbed, tortured and murdered near the Kazani ravine. Only Topalovic knew the exact number, but he is not alive any more. Because of that, as far as numbers are concerned, both in Sarajevo and in the Hague, prosecutors have been working with estimates but that, obviously, will not prevent the Tribunal from processing this case and forcing key participants to refresh their memory with assistance of witnesses, and recall what they did with Caco in the war and what cannot be described as fighting against the aggressor and the defense of the city. The Tenth Mountain Brigade at one point dropped out of the command system of the Army of Bosnia-Hercegovina so that in the end, in October 1993, a military-police action was necessary to re-assume control of and transform the unit.

The fact that Caco gave himself the right to do as he wished and not be accountable to anyone, does not excuse his followers who assisted in crimes. Because of that, after Sarajevo, they may appear in the box for the accused in the Hague.

Bejtic: First on the List?

This interlocutor could not reveal names of other candidates from the Tenth Mountain Brigade for the Hague, but since he believes that any indictment in the case will be made public, that indicates that those accused who are currently in prison (Kubat, Tucakovic, Colak, Selak) may earn one way tickets for a trip from Zenica to the Hague. Also, it cannot be excluded that some of the eight who were sentenced to ten months in prison may be also indicted by the Tribunal. Since, apparently, the Tribunal believes that war crimes were committed at Kazani and that these crimes seek justice, regardless of the ethnicity of their perpetrators.

A group of people who so far haven't publicly spoken about the crimes committed at Kazani will appear as prosecution witnesses in the Hague. These are citizens who were captured all over Sarajevo by Caco's soldiers and sent to the front lines to dig trenches. Some of them survived even after being used as "live shields". Most of them are non-Bosniaks but, according to some information, for the first time some Bosniaks who were forced to dig and risk their lives on front lines will speak out as well.

Soon, therefore, we should find out the final attitude of the Hague Tribunal in connection with the "Kazani case". In the meantime, those who bloodied their hands cannot rest in peace. To do evil and expect good, that never goes together.

Price of Fatherly Love

Dani, Sarajevo, Federation Bosnia-Hercegovina, B-H, January 7 2000

Unlike the rest of the International Community, the Hague Tribunal has had enough of Alija Izetbegovic's unfulfilled promises. Namely, the Bosniak leader has several times in the last few years promised an efficient investigation and trial of members of military and police implicated in crimes against civilians, above all in the Neretva river valley in 1993. When they realized that these were only empty promises, shocked by the farce of the Sarajevo trial of those responsible for the crimes at Kazani, the Hague prosecutors got involved in the case. According to well informed sources, indictments against several Bosniaks responsible for crimes at Kazani will be issued soon.

International, as well as Bosnian and Bosniak public will be shocked by these indictments. Not so much by their content (although the extent of their contribution to beastly crimes against civilians guilty of having wrong names is not insignificant, just the opposite) as by the realization that the Bosniak political leadership knew about these crimes and failed to prevent them in time, or to punish the perpetrators. The indictments will definitely make happy numerous individuals bent on falsifying recent history and ill-meaning advocates of the thesis about "equal responsibility of all sides for crimes committed by all sides". Had Izetbegovic's courts, at least after the end of the war, behaved in accordance with law, a great undeserved disgrace for an overwhelming majority of the defenders of Bosnia who differed from other armies by their attitude with respect to civilians, religious and cultural objects, would have been avoided.

When in November 1997 Dani wrote about crimes committed by Musan Topalovic Caco and several members of the Tenth Mountain Brigade of the Army of Bosnia-Hercegovina against several tens of Serb and Croat civilians a whole avalanche of accusations, threats and insults poured over us. Alija Izetbegovic personally conducted the campaign, dedicating most of his speech at the meeting of the Council of Congress of Bosniak Intellectuals to "the enemy, traitorous, and mercenary media"; of course, that speech was rebroadcast several times on both regular RTV BiH network and via its satellite program. What did we experience after that? Naturally, everyone out there correctly understood the message of the First Among Bosniaks and consequently gave himself the right to either demonstrate his sycophantic relation with the Leader or to relieve his primitive urges. Hasan Muratovic and reis Mustafa Ceric went the furthest in this. The former, thanks to his famed expertise in economics, calculated for Izetbegovic that our magazine cost Bosnia "between $150 and $200 million in foreign assistance" (foreign diplomats frequently mentioned this stupidity in conversations with me as an example of the extent of manipulations used by the local politicians, not realizing that they were talking to a "culprit" for the huge damage inflicted on Bosnia). A day after Izetbegovic's appearance and speech reis Ceric issued an official statement in which he, like a sage, in accordance with his relationship with Izetbegovic and the "attitude" of Islam with respect to innocent people, repeated accusations about "enemies, traitors and mercenaries". Immediately after that, our advertisers canceled all contracts with Dani, and we were banned from buying paid advertisements on RTV BiH; problems with the printing and distribution of the magazine followed... Of course, all of that was followed by most primitive threats, insults and curses received over the phone or on the street, in our offices...

I am not at all happy that Bosnia and Bosniaks will now pay much dearer price than that paid by Dani. However, that price is undeserved only to the extent that Alija Izetbegovic has been leading Bosniaks undeservedly for a decade. Among other, Izetbegovic is a politician who treated the main perpetrator of crimes at Kazani for a long time as his own son, only to have him murdered like a dog, without a trial; then he surround himself with Caco's closest collaborators, and finally organized an Islamic burial for Caco much later and sent his real son to it.