"This is my fourth invitation to a hearing. This hearing, just as all the previous ones, will be adjourned and all of us are aware that new hearings are scheduled only at the election time. I do not hope that my brother is alive, but I hope that at least some justice will be found and that the perpetrators of this bestial crime will be punished. It is hard not to know anything about the fate of one's own brother, but it is difficult to understand why both the previous and present authorities haven't done anything in connection with this case."
The series of scheduled hearings and adjournments in this marathon trial started four years ago when Nebojsa Ranisavljevic was arrested. General elections in Montenegro were held soon after that. Earlier, hope for justice was first inspired and then quenched by the arrest and then release of Milan Lukic, the alleged commander of the 25-men unit that carried out the abduction. The investigation was again "intensified" just before the presidential elections in 1997 and the hearings in the trial started just before the general elections a year later. The trial was adjourned immediately after the elections for "the lack of evidence" and new hearings scheduled for the following autumn. Two autumns have passed since. The third autumn was beaten by the local elections in Podgorica and Herceg Novi. The higher court in Bijelo Polje was instructed to schedule another hearing.
Sefko Alomerovic, the president of the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in Sandzak, has the following explanation for the motives guiding the new scheduled hearing in the trial:
"So far we've had 14 hearings and as many adjournments in the trial of Nebojsa Ranisavljevic. Apart from immediately before the elections, new hearings were also scheduled just before the visits of the former special UN rapporteur for human rights, Elisabeth Rehn, the ambassador and special envoy of the US president Robert Gelbard, chief prosecutor of the Hague Tribunal Louis Arbour and other important visitors from abroad. This case concerns not only the abduction in Strpci and the tragedy of the abducted passengers and their families, but also the tragedy of all Bosniaks in Sandzak. Beyond doubt, the abduction in Strpci is a paradigm of Bosniak suffering in FRY."
It is interesting that both Ranisavljevic's defense attorneys and attorneys representing the relatives of the abducted passengers pointed out the "coincidental" pattern of hearings scheduled just before the elections in Montenegro. Of course, that has not been entered in the record of the trial.
The first day of the main hearing went according to the expectations. Nothing new happened. Nebojsa Ranisavljevic's defense team denied all claims made in the indictment stemming from Ranisavljevic's interview with the investigative magistrate, stating that the confession was forced. That was backed up by the fact that Ranisavljevic's attorneys were present during only one of three interrogations by the investigative magistrates, which is against the law. Ranisavljevic referred to his arrest as a conspiracy:
"I was abducted from Visegrad by Zeljko Marijanovic Caruga. He was returning a favor to the Montenegrin secret service."
Therefore, instead of discussing the abduction in Strpci, the court discussed Ranisavljevic's abduction.
Ranisavljevic's attorney, Slavisa Jovanovic, from Belgrade:
"Procedural reasons forced another beginning of the trial. The already presented evidence was again confirmed and we urged the court to avoid future adjournments of the trial. We do not want a repetition of the two-year-break in the trial. We hope that during the hearing, after presentation of the evidence, we shall be able to find out the truth about what happened at the Strpci train station in 1993. We are convinced that it will be proven that Ranisavljevic is innocent."
Velija Muric, the attorney representing the relatives of the abducted passengers, said the following after the main hearing: "I believe that the hearing will be finished by the end of this year, hopefully by October. There are two reasons for that. First, every our delegation traveling abroad is reminded about the Strpci case. Finally, this trial should be finished for humanitarian reasons, regardless of whether Ranisavljevic is guilty or not."
The second day of the hearing was different with respect to the first one, not only because nothing new happened, but also because absolutely nothing happened. The witnesses, five from Serbia and two from Montenegro, failed to appear, and the court simply whiled away its time for about an hour and a half in a stuffy and crowded court room. After that, the president of the court council and the Higher Court in Bijelo Polje, Vukoman Golubovic, dressed in a new, tasteful robe, stated that the trial was being adjourned "until the autumn". Silence in the courtroom. Again?
After an intervention by Ranisavljevic's attorneys that decision was changed and a new hearing was scheduled for July 5. In the meantime, an investigation should be conducted in the Republic of Srpska. No one, not even political parties, reacted to that decision. The "election silence" had started. Again a coincidence?
However, at the entrance to the courtroom the disappointed relatives did not hide their anger.
"These people had names! We do not know where or whether they are buried. They had names: Ismet, Almir, Zvjezdan, Rifat, Esad... Their names sealed their fate and their verdicts. The verdict against them was executed swiftly. We, the families of the victims have been waiting for a verdict against the perpetrators of that crime in vain for almost eight years. Nothing has been done for seven years... I live in hope but this is getting worse and worse... I do not expect anything, I have lost my husband and my son two years after husband's death. It's all the same! They scratch the surface before every election and then nothing... We came here and now, go home! That's what I found out during these two days... If only I could know where they are buried, so that I could visit their graves on Saturday and Sunday. This way, nothing...," the relatives of the abducted passengers spoke in unison.
A press conference organized by the relatives followed. Iso Alomerovic spoke on behalf of all of them: "Those who intend to go to Europe with this sort of democracy are, in my opinion, out of place even in a tribal community. This is shameful and ignominious for these authorities. It is shameful what they are doing with us."
Milka Zulicic, the mother of Zvjezdan Zulicic, was more specific and wordy: "It started in Belgrade. The train conductor, whose name I do not know, checked documents and wrote names of passengers on their tickets. That later allowed the abductors to easily identify the victims. Nebojsa Ranisavljevic is a pawn in this game. He may have been the executor, but he is also somebody else's victim. The main culprits are, first Dobrica Cosic [FRY president at the time], then Milo Djukanovic, the Montenegrin Prime Minister at the time, then Momir Bulatovic, the president of Montenegro at the time. Then Nikola Sainovic, Radmilo Bogdanovic, Zoran Sokolovic, Djordje Blagojevic, Jovica Stanisic, Dragoljub Ojdanic, Mitrasinovic, I do not know his first name, Zeljko Simic, Margit Savovic, who supposedly defends someone's human rights, Radomir Gole, Milomir Minic, and Pavle Bulatovic; then Ratko Adzic from the Republic of Srpska, Tomo Kovac from Srpska, Vladimir Susovic, Nikola Pejakovic, Vlado Matovic, Zeljko Marjanovic, Biljana Plavsic, Radovac Karadzic, Milan Lukic, and Radoje Raicevic. I have demanded that they be summoned by the court. Ranisavljevic, who wore trousers and shoes belonging to my son Zvjezdan is the least important in all that. Please, write all of that. This is said by Milka Zulicic, maiden name Djikanovic, the mother of abducted Zvjezdan, a student on the third year of university, at the time aged 23."
GOLUBOVIC: Earlier we presented the evidence we had. After that we adjourned the trial in order to obtain new evidence from the Republic of Srpska. We had obtained that evidence and questioned passengers who were in the train on the day of the attack, but we had no evidence from the territory where the attack took place [Srpska]. Since the most important evidence is in the Republic of Srpska, we have so far addressed the authorities in Srpska and requested their assistance in this case. Our requests found no reply until March of this year when the district court from Novo Sarajevo sent us a permission for the municipal court in Visegrad to conduct an investigation in this case. After that they sent us a permission to conduct our own investigation in the Republic of Srpska.
MONITOR: Does that mean that the suspects in the investigation will be available to your court?
We shall send the competent institutions of Srpska a list of persons who we'd like to question as witnesses in this case. I hope that they will cooperate and that we shall be allowed to bring these individuals to Bijelo Polje to testify. Some of them participated in that event. Some of them are wartime commanders of the Republic of Srpska who were at the time in Visegrad. I hope that after this we shall have much more evidence that will help us reach the final decision in this case.
Will you be able to question individuals from Serbia?
We have received addresses of witnesses from Serbia, so that they will testify here in the Higher Court later in the hearing.
When will the relatives of the abducted and murdered passengers be able to obtain the remains of their loved ones?
I cannot give any predictions in such a complicated case, above all because at this time we do not have a single corpse. We need to investigate four locations and question seventeen witnesses. I hope that we shall solve this case as soon as possible and find some individuals who, according to the indictment, have been killed in the Republic of Srpska.