by Slobodan DURMANOVIC
She came with only one goal. As the only surviving witness of the murder of six members of the Ristovic family, that took place on July 8 1992 in their family residence in the Sarajevo district of Gornji Velesici, she gave a statement at the Cantonal Court in Sarajevo. She arrived in Sarajevo on May 8, at 1pm in the same way she returned a day later to a town in Serbia where she has been living for the last nine years. Considering the extreme importance of her testimony and the high risk of her visit to Sarajevo, Stojanka's visit was followed with so far unprecedented protection and security measures. Besides the Federation BH Police, the IPTF and the Police of FR Yugoslavia were also involved in the operation. Stojanka was escorted from the border with FR Yugoslavia to Sarajevo personally by Raymond Carter, the chief of cabinet of the IPTF commander in BH, she was non-stop protected by members of the Yugoslav intelligence service, based on the agreement between the IPTF and Yugoslav authorities. Stojanka obtained security guarantees personally from the Yugoslav Ministers of Justice and Police, Momcilo Grubac and Zoran Zivkovic respectively. Without such guarantees Stojanka Mastilo would have never agreed to come to Sarajevo after nine years, as she confirmed in an interview with Reporter given several days before her testimony in the Cantonal Court, given under condition that it be published only after her return to FR Yugoslavia.
"I ended up with the Ristovic family in the house in Gornji Velesici early in the war, in late April, because Bosiljka Ristovic and I were like sisters. I tried to leave Sarajevo in May, but that failed," says Stojanka.
She reminds that the Ristovics were a distinguished family, whose ancestors had lived in Sarajevo for five generations. She emphasizes that the family was not bothered during all the previous wars that went through Sarajevo because the family had the reputation of being hard working and honest.
"Bosiljka's brothers Pero and Obren had the reputation of wealthy men who did not care about ethnicity. Pero became a representative of the League of Communists of BH-ODP in the Sarajevo-Center municipality in the first pre-war elections, and was very influential, not only among the Serbs. Obren donated money, more frequently for the construction of mosques than for churches. Both for their slava, as well as for Christmas, Muslims were among the first guests... I'll never understand why they killed them...," Stojanka pauses her story lighting a cigarette.
She finds it hard to talk about what followed.
Massacre: "Early in the war, the Police came several times and searched the Ristovics' house. They were looking for weapons or what not, and they would leave, the way they came, almost normally, that's the way it seemed to me at the time. They took Pero several times to be questioned... One morning in early May, a lot of them came early, around 5am. They surrounded the house and were all wearing uniforms," Stojanka speaks reluctantly.
She does not know what the Police questioned Pero about, but in his written statement from early May, co-signed by Zijo Catic, police inspector who questioned him, he complains about "baseless accusations of treason, being a fifth column, that are published in certain newspapers and broadcast by certain radio and TV stations." He added that those rumors continued even after a public denial and were followed by house searches. In the same statement Pero Ristovic states that he is "surprised by the accusations that he locates targets [for the Bosnian Serb artillery] in the city and sends signals [to the forces] outside the city"...
All in all, Stojanka Mastilo adds that, despite everything, none of the Ristovics at any moment, even on July 8, 1992, believed that their lives were threatened.
"It was after noon, we were setting the table for lunch, for eight of us. Besides me, Bosiljka, Pero, Obren, their immobile mother Radosava, Mile and Dusan; there was also fourteen-years-old Danilo, the son of Slobodanka and Todor, from another house of the Ristovics. A car stopped in the middle of the road, next to the house. One man stayed in the car, and another three got out. Bosiljka said, 'here's our car and the Hodzics', and Pero added that they had already managed to put the Police sticker on the car. The car had been confiscated from Pero on May 3 with the justification that 'it was needed for the Police'. Osman Hodzic came that day with a handgun... The three of them got inside and asked whether we had weapons. Pero said that we did not and that if they did not believe us they were free to again search the house. They told us to sit down and we did, wherever we were at the time. I crossed my legs and put hands on both sides of my head. Then there was the click of weapons and the bullets followed... it seemed it went on forever... I remember that afterwards they only said 'let's get lost'..." Stojanka stops here, trying to stop tears.
Stojanka with trouble recalls the scene she encountered after the shooting. "I heard that the door closed behind them, but did not believe my senses, so that I peeked to make sure they were gone. Then I approached my Bosiljka. She had a surprised expression on her face. I slapped her several times but she was not responding. Then I realized that a bullet had hit her straight in the heart. I took a pitcher with water to wash blood off them. There was blood everywhere... I saw the boy Danilo. He was not recognizable. Remains of his brain were stuck to the window next to him... Dusan was the only one still alive, but when he looked up around him he fainted. I thought that he had died," Stojanka pauses and remains silent for a while.
Her testimony almost fully matches that of Dusan Ristovic, who also survived the massacre, although severely wounded. He testified about the massacre four years later in the lower court in Teslic, on September 26, 1996, a year after he had left Sarajevo in an exchange. The same year, in 1996, Dusan, however, died in Teslic, before giving a statement to the Sarajevo police about the massacre of Ristovics.
One of the reasons [for the lack of interest of Sarajevo police in his testimony] can perhaps be found in his chart from the time he was treated at the Kosevo hospital, for two and a half months after the attack. Namely, the chart states that he was literally wounded "by a fragment from an artillery shell"!
Farce: The Sarajevo Police initiated an investigation about the crime against Ristovics, but the indictment was written only seven months later by the then police chief Bakir Alispahic. Five persons were charged with the crime: Mirsad and Osman Hodzic, Admir Adilovic, Ismet Cutuk, and Meho Ibrisevic. Mirsad Hodzic was soon declared mentally unstable, although he had work for the police until then, and Cutuk and Adilovic were released due to "lack of evidence" by the Cantonal, at the time District, Court in Sarajevo. Cutuk today works as a detective for the Sarajevo Police, while Adilovic is a colonel of the Federation BH Army. The remaining two, Osman Hodzic and Meho Ibrisevic were allegedly "at large", although late last year, when they finally faced the court, they testified that they had been in Sarajevo all along. However, their "hiding" can perhaps be "understood" considering a letter sent to the District Court immediately after the indictment against the first three defendants was issued. The mentioned petition letter, signed by "about 800 residents of Vogosca and fighters of united Vogosca units and brigades" of the then Army of Bosnia-Hercegovina, advises the court the following: "You want to try people who courageously liquidated Chetnik supporters, whom you consider for loyal citizens. And those Serbs at the same time were actually traitors. We, undersigned fighters and citizens guarantee that our comrades were right to liquidate the Ristovic family," concludes the petition letter sent to the court.
Thus, the murderers were not sentenced until today. The trial pretty much did not make any progress despite, for example, a statement of one witness that the movement of the Ristovics, in parallel with searches of their house and taking of Pero Ristovic into custody, was monitored and secretly taped by Police cameras.
The same witness stated in court that "it is most likely that there were two investigations, one by the military and another by the Police," so that Sefer Halilovic was also summoned to testify, but he never appeared in the court, although he wrote about the Ristovics massacre in his book "Sly strategy"...
Bakir Alispahic worked on this investigation the way he did, and soon afterwards he was appointed for the Minister of Police, while the hitherto minister Jusuf Pusina was employed by Alija Izetbegovic as his adviser for security. By the way, Pusina remains remembered by his statement that Murat Sabanovic (?!) was involved in the murder of the Ristovics, as one witness mentioned in the investigation...
All in all, Stojanka Mastilo will leave Sarajevo after testifying for the Sarajevo Police and "with the assistance from many quarters" will return to Serbia. "After leaving Sarajevo I could not for a long time live without pills. I am easily distressed even today. That killed me as well and... it's all very hard... I fight, but it's hard to fight something like that," Stojanka Mastilo concludes her statement for Reporter. In the last few years Stojanka has miscarried three times and the physicians have concluded that she should not try to have children any more.