Tanaskovic indictment confirmed

An indictment for crimes against humanity has been filed against Nenad “Neso” Tanaskovic, a Serb from Visegrad and a former member of reserve police detachment of former Srpska Republika BiH.

In the indictment, which consists of seven counts, he is charged that in 1992, as member of the Visegrad public security unit, jointly with members of the Army of Srpska Republika BiH, he took part in attacks on civilians in Visegrad, “where hundreds of civilians were tortured, killed, raped, illegally detained and forcefully relocated”.

According to the indictment, at the end of May 1992, Tanaskovic and a group of members of paramilitary formations took part in the detention of male civilians in the vicinity of Visegrad.

The prosecution claims that the accused used detainees as a human shield, threatening to kill those who tried to escape, after which he burned their houses.

It is alleged that Tanaskovic took the same group of civilians to the elementary school in village Orahovci where he beat them.

According to the indictment, in May 1992 Tanaskovic took witness A, threatened to rape her, and then gave her over to soldiers who did rape her.

In the indictment it is described how on June 16, 1992, while the soldiers were unloading detainees from a truck on Visegrad’s Old bridge before killing them and throwing them into the Drina river, Tanaskovic made witness C and another older man clean blood and remove bodies and parts of bodies from the bridge.

After that, it is claimed that the indictee took witness C to the yard of Hotel Visegrad, where he beat him, then made him lick blood from the floor. This abuse was allegedly continued in the high school centre, where witness C was brutally beaten a few more times.

While justifying counts of the indictment, the prosecution stated that Tanaskovic was fully aware of his acts, and that he knew of the “existence and nature of attacks on Bosniak civilian population”.

It is also stated that a certain behaviour model is noticed in Tanaskovic’s behaviour during the war, meaning that he was involved in abductions of civilians who were then abused, tortured, raped and killed by others.

“The investigation gave no evidence that Tanaskovic was ever personally physically involved in the murders or rapes of any victims”, it is further stated in the explanation.

Still, the prosecution claims that Tanaskovic was “more than aware of the possible fate of his victims”.

According to the existing law, the indictee will be called within 15 days to plead regarding his guilt. The main hearing is supposed to start within 90 after the pleading.

Tanaskovic, who was born in 1961 in village Donja Lijeska, municipality Visegrad, was arrested on July 11 of this year in Slavonska Pozega. On the same day he was transferred to detainment unit Kula, in East Sarajevo, where he is now awaiting trial.