by Esad HECIMOVIC
During the two months of the trial in the Travnik Cantonal Court, Paraga and his defense attorney, Sarajevo lawyer Edina Residovic, tried to prove that Paraga did not order that the Italians be shot and that the murder was not carried out by the soldiers under his command. The court found otherwise.
Sentence after seven years: "The defendant is guilty because during the state of war in Bosnia-Hercegovina (BH) he violated the rules of the Geneva convention (article 3) about protection of civilians during the war and the rules of article 75 of the First Supplementary Protocol of the Geneva Convention about the protection of participants in the international armed conflict by setting on May 29 1993, together with soldiers under his command an ambush in the region known as Guser, in the Gornji Vakuf municipality. At the time the defendant was the commander of the 3rd battalion of the 317th mountain brigade of the Army of Bosnia-Hercegovina. When a humanitarian convoy consisting of a freighter truck with a trailer, and a four-wheel drive vehicle Lada Niva, carrying Italian nationals, volunteers with the Humanitarian Solidarity Initiative from Brescia arrived from Gornji Vakuf, the defendant blocked the road with a small group of armed soldiers, while the other soldiers remained hidden on both sides of the road. They threatened the drivers with arms and diverted the convoy to a forest track. In the locality Hraskrsce they loaded the goods from the truck and trailer onto tractors that had been brought by the locals from the nearby villages. Some of the goods were taken to a military storage house, to be used by the military, while the rest was distributed to the local population. They drove the Italians on a tractor towards the Radovan Mountain, with an armed escort. On the Radovan Mountain the defendant ordered two of his subordinates to take the Italian humanitarian workers to the nearby forest and kill them. They executed the order," judge Nidzara Zlotrg said.
However, she was unable to finish the following sentence: "Under the threat of arms, the soldiers took the humanitarian workers to the forest, where they first took the money and gold jewelry that the victims had on themselves, and then..." At this point the defendant collapsed.
"Open the window! Bring water to splash his face. He cannot walk. He is going to fall," Edina Residovic demanded.
The judge continued: "Fabio Moreno was hit by five bullets, Sergio Lana by at least eight bullets, while Guido Puletti was hit by two bullets. All of them died from the inflicted wounds."
Paraga was unable to stand and the judge permitted him to listen to the rest of the verdict seated. "Cristhian Penocchio and Agostino Zanotti managed to throw themselves on the ground and avoid the bullets. Then, they escaped," judge Zlotrg explained.
The crime on the Radovan Mountain was committed on May 29, 1993, and Paraga was arrested by special forces policemen from Travnik seven and a half years later, on October 6, 2000. The lower court passed its judgment in this case on June 28, 2001. After the verdict, it is unclear why the authorities of the Republic of Bosnia-Hercegovina and Federation BH failed to initiate an investigation about this crime for seven and a half years.
Dead witnesses: "The Italian ambassador demanded from the cabinet of Alija Izetbegovic that an investigation be initiated. The Izetbegovic's cabinet urged General Rasim Delic of the Army of Bosnia-Hercegovina to start an investigation. In November 1994, Delic sent an order to the commands of the Third and Seventh Corps in Zenica and Travnik. A mixed investigative commission was formed, consisting of members of the military security service with the Third and Seventh Corps of the Army of Bosnia-Hercegovina and the Police station in Zenica. The commission included two military investigators from both corpses and Asim Saranovic from the Zenica police, currently the Minister of Internal Affairs of Zenica-Doboj canton. The part of the commission from the Seventh Corps was convinced "that the case could be solved quickly, but now is not the good time for that'. Paraga, as the leader of the group, and another soldier were identified. Paraga wore a beret with a star and crescent, while the soldier had a 'scull and bones' on his beret. Military security service of the 7th Corps concluded that any investigation or arrest of Paraga would prompt withdrawal of two important units from the front. Thus, the investigation was blocked at the very beginning. The commission said that it would request additional information from higher in the command chain. The court in Travnik was delivered a report produced by the commission through the Federation Ministry of Defense, as top secret material. Thus, no one from the state and military institutions ever asked Paraga anything about this event," one local source, knowledgeable about the content of the court files in this case, explains.
It hasn't been explained who and when made the decision to block the investigation about Hanefija Prijic Paraga and soldiers under his command. After the verdict, it still hasn't been established who actually shot and killed the Italian humanitarian workers. During the investigation and trial, it was established that during the events the defendant was in the company of Sabahudin Prijic also known as Dino and Rasema Handanovic. But, these witnesses have left Bosnia-Hercegovina and all attempts to locate them by the local police and the Interpol have failed.
During the trial Paraga admitted that he talked with soldier Sabahudin Prijic, but he apparently asked him what he was doing there. He also denied that he ordered his cousin Sabahudin Prijic, a soldier in the anti-sabotage unit, to kill the humanitarian workers, but he admitted that he tripped over one of the corpses and threw up after that. He kept repeating that he had no idea what had happened and who and why had shot.
Hanefija Prijic also said that he intended to give Niva back to the Italians and that he was going to release them. He explained that he had consequently shown them the way from the Radovan mountain to Novi Travnik and Bugojno. His assertion that he submitted a report to the command of the 317th Brigade after the incident was denied by the Federation BH Ministry of Defense, which claims that such a report could not be found in the archives. Commander of the 317th brigade Enver Zejnilagic, commander of PDO Goran Cisic and the chief of military police of the 317th brigade, Arif Pokvic all died in the defense of Gornji Vakuf.
Paraga claimed the dead for his witnesses and refused to talk about the living who could be held responsible as the murderers or superior commanders who failed to investigate and punish the crime. Selmo Cikotic was the commander of the Operation Group Bugojno - Gornji Vakuf, and the crime took place on the territory under his jurisdiction. Generals Enver Hadzihasanovic, Sakib Mahmuljin and Mehmed Alagic were commanders of the Third and Seventh Corps' at the time. The investigation was blocked with knowledge of the military and political leadership of the then Republic of Bosnia-Hercegovina, but it is not known who ultimately made the decision. Prijic's defense attorney Edina Residovic explained that the defense was not responsible to establish who ordered and who committed the crime. Namely, as far as the defense was concerned, the crime was not disputed, but the defense did not want to get into the issue of guilt and culprits. It decided to stick to trying to prove that Paraga was innocent.
Warriors: The wartime investigation of international civilian and military monitors ended similarly, but with different motivation. Only towards the end of the trial, the Travnik Court was delivered wartime reports of the European Monitoring Mission from Zenica and Gornji Vakuf about this crime, by the Italian authorities, via the embassy of the Republic of Italy in Sarajevo!?
Doubts about the failure of the international missions with presence in Bosnia to submit these reports earlier to the Bosnian authorities were dispelled once the reports were read in the courtroom. The reports arrived in Travnik from the archive of the United Nations in New York or the archives in Brussels. The reports describe Paraga and his soldiers as "an armed gang that operates with about thirty soldiers, although they display only 6-10 soldiers in ambushes". Reports state that Paraga is popular with the local population. European monitors said that "commander Selmo Cikotic ordered further investigation of the incident with Italian nationals," but that, contrary to that information, it turned out that the investigation never took place. European monitors informed Brussels from Zenica and Gornji Vakuf that there was a risk of revenge attacks against the mission if the ECMM took part in the investigation and the investigation was successfully concluded. The location of the crime was described by European monitors as "the area of numerous incidents, robberies and abductions that have increased tensions in Gornji Vakuf." They recommended travel though this region only with escort of Warriors, armed troops carriers of the British UNPROFOR battalion.
The defendant, his relatives and friends from Gornji Vakuf were apparently insulted by the content of these reports. During the trial we had an opportunity to see a videotape, which allowed the Italian authorities to identify Paraga as the commander responsible for the murder. The tape was recorded by Akif Agic, a wartime correspondent from this region. A journalist of Italian TV channel owned by Silvio Berluscioni received it from Enver Zejnilagic. The Italian sources said that Zejnilagic tried to prove Paraga's innocence with that tape, but exactly that tape allowed the Italian authorities to identify Paraga.
The videorecording also includes a song about Praga: Hanefija, brother, Allah be with you, because you defend good people. The defense presented a lot of evidence about Paraga's humane treatment of captured soldiers of the HVO, including a letter by one Serb who managed to protect his family and himself with Paraga's message saying: "No one is allowed to touch these people."
Paraga earned the status of war hero in the mountains near Gornji Vakuf in clashes with the HVO between June 1992 and January 1993. "On June 22 1992 Paraga prevented occupation of Gornji Vakuf by the HVO. It is impressive what this pre-war bricklayer managed to do in the fighting, despite total lack of military experience. At that time the HVO and the Army BH were still formally allies, but the HVO tried to take control of the town. Clashes in Gornji Vakuf started much earlier. After this event in May 1993, Paraga totally changed and withdrew from public, and was spending almost all the time in the mountains with his men," one source from the wartime military security service of the Army BH in central Bosnia says.
It is still not known whether and when the prosecutor's office will initiate investigation for the murder of the three Italian humanitarian workers. The prosecution against Paraga was represented by the former cantonal and now federal prosecutors, Marinko Jurcevic, and Behaija Krnjic, currently the acting cantonal prosecutor. The families of the murdered humanitarian workers were represented by Lorenzo Trucco a lawyer from Turin, and Sarajevo lawyer Zarko Bulic. But, only when the actual murderers show up in the courtroom, it will be possible to establish the full truth about this event. Paraga, together with his defense attorney, will need to decide whether to appeal the verdict.
Judge Nidzara Zlotrg said that "the judicial council would prefer it if all parties in the case appealed to the Supreme Court of the Federation BH and if the Supreme Court made the final ruling."
Guido Puletti was a journalist, who after surviving torture in Argentina came back to Italy. One of the subjects of his newspaper articles was Jadranko Bozanovic, editor of Radio Zavidovici, who was murdered in his home on September 10, 1995, one night after the Army of BH captured Vozuca. Jadranko had run a 24-hour program dedicated to the liberation of Vozuca a day before. It is believed that Jadranko Bozanovic knew at least one of his murderers, because it is generally known that at no time during the war, because of numerous threats, he opened his door to people he did not know. Murderers of Jadranko Bozanovic were never found. Similarly, other war crimes committed in this region haven't been resolved so far.
The Bosniak public interpreted these claims until now as a continuation of the Croat wartime propaganda: "Paraga is still on the pages of the Croat press and Croat journalists habitually describe him as a devil and murderer whenever an offensive on Gornji Vakuf is in the works. An event unprecedented in the history of warfare took place during the first Ustashe [Croat] offensive: unpredictably courageous man, known as Paraga, captured the Ustashe commander Zulu three times in four days, and released him every time after, naturally, disarming him. Paraga then disarmed many young men who after the ceasefire ambled around begging for at least their rifles, so that they could return them to the military authorities." This is what Bosniak newspapers wrote in July 1993 about Paraga.