Brother Killed at Jewish Cemetery

As the trial for crimes in Sarajevo continues before the Cantonal Court, a Prosecution witness says that her neighbours, including “the Bogdanovic brothers and Goran Sladoje”, took her father and brother from their house to a garage, where they were beaten up, and then to the Jewish Cemetery, where her brother was killed.

Witness Mirsada Beslic said that, at the beginning of the war she lived in a house in Sarajevo with her mother Rukija and father Bajro, as well as her brother Suad and his family.

As she said, she went to Germany on April 16, 1992, while members of her family stayed home. She met her parents again in 1997.
“It was hard for my father to speak about my brother. He told me that some neighbours, including the Bogdanovic brothers and Goran Sladoje, took him to garages in order to question him about a radio communication device, which they thought he had. After that they took my brother away as well,” the witness said.

Beslic told the Court that her father told her that they took them to the Jewish Cemetery, where the division line between them and the Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina, ABiH, was.

“My father did not hear the gunshot. At some moment he fainted. However, he woke up and crossed to the other side, where ABiH forces were. He told me that he heard my brother begging those people not to kill him,” the witness said.

When asked by Prosecutor Sead Krestalica who took them to the Jewish Cemetery, the witness said that they were taken by “Sladoje and Bogdanovic” – the same people, who took them out of the house.

Slobodan Bogdanovic and Goran Sladoje are charged with having come to Besic’s house on June 13, 1992 and taken Bajro and Suad Besic to a garage, where they hit them. Later on they allegedly took them to the Jewish Cemetery, where they used them as human shields. On that occasion Suad was killed.

According to the Sarajevo Cantonal Prosecution’s charges, Bogdanovic and Sladoje arrested, detained and caused bodily injuries to civilians from mid-June to the end of 1992.

The witness said that her sister told her that the indictees beat her brother-in-law Rajko Simic up in Kula.

“I remember having met my brother-in-law and sister. He looked awful. He could not speak. My sister told me that he was beaten by Goran and Bogdanovic,” Beslic said.

When asked by Bogdanovic’s Defence attorney Radivoje Lazarevic why she failed to mention who had beaten her brother-in-law in her previous statements, she said that she found the situation stressful and that it was the first time she had given a statement.

The trial is due to continue on February 20.