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Three wives of men found guilty of wartime rape claim their lives have been turned upside down since their husbands’ convictions.
They’ve told BIRN that they believe their spouses are innocent, regardless of their guilty verdicts.
Radojka Markovic’s husband, Miodrag, was sentenced to six years in prison by the Bosnian state court for the wartime rape of a girl in Dragalovci, near Doboj.
“I was shocked and surprised when the indictment was raised. Everyone says he’s innocent and I support him. I stand by his side,” she said.
Snjezana Solesa married Dusko Soles in 1989. Her husband was convicted of raping a girl in Bihac.
Solesa told BIRN that news of her husband’s crime made her already fragile health worse.
“All of the people around us were horrified when he was charged, because as a family we helped many people during the war. We have a lot of family members of other nationalities and we tried to keep our humanity during the war,” Solesa said.
Jasmina Sijak has been married to her husband Mirsad for 26 years. When she learned her husband was charged with rape, she didn’t believe he was guilty.
Mirsad Sijak ended up being sentenced to seven years in prison for raping a Croat woman in Vares.
All three women blame the victims in the respective cases and not their husbands, refusing to allow for the possibility of their guilt.
“This is a psychological defense mechanism called denial. In the beginning, it’s a psychological form of defense for an individual and when denial lasts longer it becomes a primitive coping mechanism,” neuropsychologist Amra Delic explains.
Delic said she believed Markovic, Solesa and Sijak could benefit from psychological assistance, and that similar instances of denial can be found in children whose fathers have been convicted of war crimes.
Jasmina Sijak told BIRN that she and her daughter visit her husband often in prison.
“Our daughter is a formed individual, and she refuses to discuss this. She does not see her father in the conviction, just like I don’t and those that know him don’t,” Sijak said.
Delic says that overall, the denial of war crimes is much more common than acceptance.
“It’s hard to imagine that a good husband and father could rape someone. Individuals benefit from the general policy of denying war crimes, which is present in all walks of life,” Delic said.
