The seige of Gorazde ’92-’95

Map showing ethnic cleansing in Eastern Bosnia. Author is unknown.

Watch a short documentary about the seige of Gorazde ’92-’95:

PROSECUTION: LIFE SENTENCE FOR MEN WHO STOLE 3,000 YEARS OF LIFE

In its closing argument, the prosecution has called for a sentence that will ensure that Milan and Sredoje Lukic ‘will remain in prison for the rest of their lives’, a sentence that will send a clear message that there is no mercy for those capable of committing such heinous crimes. Milan Lukic’s defense contends the prosecution has failed to prove Milan Lukic’s responsibility beyond reasonable doubt, asking for his acquittal. Sredoje Lukic’s defense will deliver its closing argument tomorrow.

Milan and Sredoje Lukic

‘There is only one sin, and that is theft. All other sins are variations on that theme and murder could be seen as theft of life’. Prosecutor Dermot Groome used this quote from a book Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini in his closing argument at the trial of Milan and Sredoje Lukic. Groome urged the judges to deliver the sentence that would make sure the accused ‘will spend the rest of their lives in prison’ because they ‘stole more than 3,000 years of life’ in June 1992 from the Visegrad Muslims.

Milan and Sredoje Lukic are charged with setting up the two living pyres in which about 140 people were burned to death, and with the murder and abuse of Visegrad Muslims in 1992. Murder is, as Groome put it, ‘a theft of life’, not only of the victims but also of their families and the community as a whole. If the crimes at issue in this case are seen from that point of view, the prosecution noted, it will be understood ‘that the people in Visegrad suffered inestimable loss because of the actions of the two accused and the scale of the theft’.

The prosecution wants the judgment handed down to Milan and Sredoje Lukic to ‘send a clear message’: all those who ‘might contemplate committing similar crimes and use vulnerable victims’ that they would be arrested and criminally prosecuted. They will have the right to a fair trial but if they proven guilty’ there will be ‘no mercy’ for them as they would ‘be punished to the maximum extent of the law’.

Jason Alarid

Jason Alarid, Milan Lukic’s US lawyer, contested in his closing argument the evidence of the surviving victims and other prosecution witnesses describing them as ‘liars’, ‘lunatics’, ‘alcoholics’ and ‘hysterical persons’. Alarid challenged the identification of his client and questioned whether the living pyres in the Pionirska Street and in Bikavac actually happened. According to him, it has not been established whether there was a fire there and the victims have not been identified. In Alarid’s view, the prosecution has failed to contest the ‘irrefutable evidence on the alibi’ of Milan Lukic: therefore, all the witnesses who claimed that they saw the accused at the crime scene ‘lied’. The prosecution, Alarid contends, failed to investigate the Visegrad crimes properly and has not been able to call evidence which would prove his client’s guilt beyond reasonable doubt. This is why, the defense counsel argued, Milan Lukic should be acquitted on all counts in the indictment.

The defense of the second accused, Sredoje Lukic, will deliver its closing argument tomorrow afternoon.

Dutch handwriting expert Wil Fagel

Before the closing arguments, the last prosecution witness, Dutch handwriting expert Wil Fagel took the stand. Fagel concluded that the signature of former police commander in Visegrad, Risto Perisic, was forged on the document corroborating Milan Lukic’s alibi for the fire in the Pionirska Street. In the cross-examination of the Dutch handwriting expert, the defense implied that Perisic intentionally signed the document differently in order to be able to deny the authenticity of his signatures later and avoid any responsibility for the crimes. In its final brief the defense contends that Milan Lukic was indicted to direct the attention away from ‘the true leaders in Visegrad in 1992’, including Risto Perisic.

Source: Sense-agency

Bosnian Serb MP’s turn down Holocaust&Srebrenica rememberence days.

Today (13.05) the B&H parliament voted on an initiative to proclaim 21 January as Holocaust Rememberence Day and 11 July as Srebrenica Rememberence Day. Bosnian Serb Members of Parliament from Republika Srpska(Republic of Srpska) voted against this initiative. The initiative was based on a European standard which Yad Vashem clearly shows and the European Parliament  Srebrenica Resolution.

Mass grave filled with Bosniak civilians. Thousands of Bosniaks were murdered by Bosnian Serb Army in a genocide in and around Srebrenica in July 1995.

Bosnian Serb Members of Parliament who voted against this initiative are:

1. Milorad Zivkovic
2. Slavko-Slavuj Jovicic
3. Milica Markovic
4. Drago Kalabic
5. Lazar Prodanovic
6. Zeljko Kuzmanovic
7. Momcilo Novakovic
8. Savo Eric
9. Mirko Okolic
10. Hadzi Jovan Mitrovic
11. Branko Dokic

STRIPPING NAKED WORSE THAN DEATH

Milan Lukic and his cousin Sredoje Lukic in the Hague.

THE HAGUE, 05.09.2008.

Mother and son who managed to escape the living pyre in the Pionirska Street on 14 June 1992 gave evidence at the trial of Milan and Sredoje Lukic, charged with crimes committed in Visegrad. The witnesses recounted how they were humiliated before the house in which they were shut in together with some 70 other Bosniak prisoners was set on fire. Only seven of them survived

Two survivors of the massacre in the Pionirska Street in Visegrad, mother and son testifying under the pseudonyms VG-18 and VG-84 gave evidence about what happened on 14 June 1992 when some 70 Bosniaks from the village of Koritnik were burned alive in a house in the Pionirska Street in Visegrad.

VG-84 was barely 14 years-old when he was shut in a house in the Pionirska Street together with his mother and about 70 of his neighbors. In his brief examination-in chief by the prosecutor he said that there were some fifteen other children in the house, including a two-day old baby. He couldn’t imagine that he would ‘burn in flames’ at the age of fourteen; he ‘played until the very last moment’.

In his replies to the defense counsel of Milan and Sredoje Lukic, the witness confirmed that he didn’t know the two accused before that day. He had heard their names from older people who recognized them when they came to the house to take away their ‘money and gold’. In his words, when the JNA had left Visegrad, ‘everybody was scared’ when the names of Milan and Sredoje Lukic were mentioned. The rumor had it that they go around Muslim villages ‘burning down houses and taking men away’. The witness was not able to identify them in the courtroom because, as he put it, he was ‘too young to be able to clearly remember faces’.

In the part of her evidence given in public session, VG-18, housewife from the village of Koritnik and mother of witness VG-84 talked about the humiliation and abuse of captured women prior to the fire. Being forced to strip naked together with other women was, as she said, ‘worse than death’. The witness said that in that afternoon Milan Lukic took two young girls away for several hours. When they returned, everybody was ‘ashamed’ to ask them what had happened, but everybody guessed that they had been raped.

‘It hurts to know that my village is empty’, the witness said at the end of her evidence. She was visibly upset. She said that ever since 14 June 1992 she had had problems ‘with nerves and high blood pressure’ every time she thought about this incident.

The trial of Milan and Sredoje Lukic will continue on Monday when the defense counsel will examine the witness VG-18.

Source: Sense Agency