1992 Srebrenica Murder Defendant Dies in Bosnia

Izet Arifovic, a former Bosniak Territorial Defence fighter who was sentenced to ten years in prison under a first-instance verdict by the Bosnian state court for killing Serb civilians, died on Monday, his defence lawyer told BIRN.

Arifovic was found guilty last September of murdering two civilians who had been captured in the village of Zalazje in the Srebrenica area on July 12, 1992, and killing another civilian in the village of Ratkovici, near Bratunac, on June 21, 1992.

The court found his co-defendant Suad Smajlovic guilty of mutilating the bodies of the dead Serbs by firing his gun at them, but he was acquitted of participating in the murders.

A third defendant, Amir Salihovic, was acquitted of unlawfully arresting nine Serbs after a military operation in Zalazje on July 12, 1992 and taking them to an unknown place, after which they disappeared.

The arrests of the three defendants in 2016 were welcomed by Serb war victims’ groups, who often accuse the Bosnian judicial authorities of not targeting perpetrators of crimes against Serbs.

But the arrests angered Bosniak veterans and war victims’ associations, who argued that the prosecution should prioritise cases against Serb perpetrators of the 1995 genocide, when more than 7,000 men and boys from Srebrenica were killed.

The proceedings against Smajlovic and Salihovic will continue.