Killing People’s Souls

Kljuc residents happened to meet Marko Adamovic, charged with crimes committed in Kljuc, who is defending himself while at liberty, in front of the judicial institutions complex as he arrived to attend a hearing.

The gathered residents, most of whom were mothers of killed people, surrounded the car in which Adamovic arrived and tried to speak to him and, as they said, ask him what had happened to their children. Adamovic avoided meeting them in person by using an alternative entrance. The Court security staff were present at the location, but there was no need for them to intervene.

Adamovic has been defending himself while at liberty since February this year. He is charged, together with Vinko Kondic and Bosko Lukic, with crimes committed in the Kljuc area in 1992. Among other things, they are charged with the murder and deportation of civilians from Donji Biljani, Botonjici, Domazeti, Brkici villages.

Marko Samardzija, former Commander of the Third Squad with Sanica Battalion of the Republika Srpska Army, VRS, was sentenced, by a second-instance verdict, to seven years in prison for crimes committed in Biljani village.

Nijaz Delic, one of the protest organizers, announced that he would ask the Prosecution to have Marko Adamovic ordered into custody again.

“You make a deal with the Court and you can go home. It is so miserable and sad. I have come here because I am disgusted. I am agitated, as it has not been easy to bear with that for so many years. 260 people were killed in Biljani and loaded into Laniste deep. I lost my young son and my father. The fact that I was not killed was just an eventuality,” Ale Mulahmetovic said.

The Kljuc residents gathered in order to express disapproval of the Court’s “slowness” and treatment of victims, as well as the fact that the Court and Prosecution “are not doing the job for which they are paid”.

“All these protests are ‘of no effect’, but we have to do something. We cannot just sit there doing nothing, knowing that 700 Kljuc residents were killed. Every tenth town resident was killed. Every fifth was detained. They killed our dearest ones. They killed our souls. Nobody is held responsible for killing people’s souls. These souls of these people here were killed. I do not consider myself a living person since 1992,” Magbula Mesanovic said.

In 1992 in Biljani village her son and husband were killed. She fled the town, taking her 11-year old son Armin, on July 16, 1992. As Magbula says, today her son suffers from chronic post-traumatic stress disorder. He is retired, although he is only 25 years old.

“I was deported from Kljuc in September 1992. They killed all my family,” Sedika Botonjic said.

Among the gathered victims’ representatives was Sahiza Barucic, who said she did not believe the protests would change anything, adding that it was important for everyone to see that they had not forgotten what had happened to them.

“My 24-year old son was killed in Kljuc. He left the house on May 27, 1992. I have not seen him since then. I have been looking for him for 10 years. When I found his bones, I just said: ‘Why you, Emir, my son?'” Barucic said.