Ilijas War Victims Lament Justice’s Snail’s Pace

The Cantonal Prosecution in Sarajevo and the Prosecution of Bosnia and Herzegovina have initiated several investigations against more than 120 persons concerning crimes committed in the 1990s in the territory of the municipality of Ilijas.

But victims of the war feel deeply dissatisfied, saying they fear that they will not live to see justice done on behalf of themselves or their lost loved ones.

About 200 people were killed in Ilijas, which lies about 18km from Sarajevo, in May and June 1992, following an attack of the Army of Republika Srpska, VRS.

The Cantonal Prosecution in Sarajevo and the Prosecution of Bosnia and Herzegovina have conducted investigations against a total of 126 persons for the crimes but give few details.

The Cantonal Prosecution says it is investigating five criminal cases against 120 persons for war crimes committed at the territory of Ilijas, while the Prosecution of Bosnia and Herzegovina says investigations are open in two cases against six persons for these crimes.

Only one person has been jailed for, among other things, the crimes committed in Ilijas – Biljana Plavsic, the former president of Republika Srpska. After pleading guilty she was sentenced to 11 years in prison. She was freed in October 2009.

Families of the victims say they are angry about the slow pace of prosecuting those who were responsible, saying they want at least to find the remains of their loved ones. More than 20 years on, the remains of 54 persons are still not found.

Villages attacked:
Survivors recall that the Bosnian Serb army and police attacked the villages of Bioca, Ljesevo, Kadric, Luka and the centre of Ilijas in May and June 1992.

The men who were not killed on the spot were imprisoned and in some cases tortured in a number of locations. These included the elementary school in Gornja Bioca, the Iskra warehouse, the basement of the train station in Podlugovi and the “27th July” junior school in Ilijas.

Gornja Bioca was first village to come under attack on May 29, 1992. Two persons were killed and another three were wounded in the attack, while the men were taken away to detention facilities.

“Our neighbours and friends disguised themselves in paramilitary uniforms and came with cockades on their heads to our homes and captured us,” Sabahudin Sehic, from Gornja Bioca, recalled.

“Huzeir and Zahid Selimovic, father and son, were killed. They came to their home and shot Huzeir through the door, and when they broke down the door, they took out his son and killed him, too,” he added.

A first-instance verdict of the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina in December 2011 acquitted Srpko Pustivuk of involvement in the attack on Gornja Bioca.

During the attack, Sehic said that local Bosniaks [Muslims] were arrested and detained in the elementary school.

“We were interrogated, tortured, starved in the school… Some were taken to the police for questioning and ended up in mass graves,” Sehic said.

He added that after seven days the detainees were transferred to the Iskra warehouse in Podlugovi, where they were detained for another 75 days.

“In Podlugovi, some were in a critical condition. One man died, he was poisoned, because they threw poison into the basement of the railway station.

“We had no food, hygiene, and we got fleas, but also infectious diseases. People fell unconscious,” Sehic added, noting that they were later transferred to other facilities, like Planjina kuca in Semizovac.

Sehic says his long detention has left mental and physical scars that the years have not effaced.

After the attack on Bioca, the Bosnian Serb army and police attacked the villages of Ljesevo, Kadarici, Luka and center of Ilijas in June 1992.

Shot dead on a hillock:

In an interview with BIRN-Justice Report, Habiba Fazlic said that her husband was killed along with another 21 Bosniaks in Ljesevo.

A Bosnian Serb soldier struck her husband with the rifle butt and then they drove him off, along with other men, to a hillock, she sai