Marking 32 years since the brutal crimes committed against Sarajevo Serbs — who were killed by members of the so-called Army of BiH and thrown into the Kazani pit on the slopes of Mount Trebević above Sarajevo — former war crimes investigator of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Republika Srpska, Simo Tushevljak, stated that this crime bears all the hallmarks of genocide.
He pointed out that the Bosniak side has sought to conceal the crime at the Kazani pit, as well as other crimes and detention centers targeting Serbs in the Sarajevo area.
“The victims thrown into the Kazani pit were of Serb nationality — even Serbs who were members of the so-called Army of BiH,” Tushevljak said.
He noted that even today, 32 years after the crime, the truth is being hidden. He recalled that in 1993, the intelligence branch of the Army of BiH issued a document to the wartime Presidency of BiH confirming that the crime at Kazani had all the hallmarks of genocide.
“If genocide occurred in BiH, then it was committed against Serbs in Sarajevo,” Tushevljak asserted.
He said that those who acknowledged the crimes received minimal sentences, and those who didn’t never faced accountability.
“Alija Izetbegović in 1996 and 1997 amnestied them and thereby endorsed the crimes at Kazani,” he said.
Tushevljak cited witness statements identifying bodies of their family members during inspection in November or December 1993, when bodies were being retrieved from the pit at Kazani.
“We have a statement from a woman of Bosniak nationality who said that among 200 corpses she recognised her husband,” he said.
He reported that 117 bodies retrieved from the pit were hidden from the public, though mortuary ledgers from Koševo hospital exist. He also claimed that the pit was later filled with concrete and waste to prevent access and further exhumation.
“In doing so they hid the full extent of the crime against Serbs. Even the killing of /Mušan Topalović/ ‘Caco’ was an attempt to conceal the crime,” he said.
It is suspected that more than one hundred bodies of murdered Sarajevo Serbs were thrown into the pits on Trebević between 1992 and 1995. The perpetrators were members of the 10th Mountain Brigade of the alleged Army of BiH, commanded by pre-war Sarajevo criminal Mušan Topalović “Caco”. From 1991 to 1993, during raids, Serbs were captured on the streets and in apartments of Sarajevo and taken to dig trenches on Trebević, where the pit Kazani is located.
In addition to the Kazani pit, the Sarajevo City Council on November 15, 2021, unveiled a memorial dedicated to the killed Sarajevo Serbs during 1992-93. The inscription on the memorial stirred controversy because it did not mention perpetrators or victim nationalities, only names.
The memorial lists names in Latin script: Marko and Nevenka Bošković, Dragomir Ćeranić, Mileva Drašković, Ranko Frankić-Brkljača, Duško Jovanović, Marina and Radoslav Komljenac, Ana and Vasilj Lavriv, Novka Lemez, Ergin Nikolić, Branislav Radosavljević, Predrag Šalipur, Aga Štete, Zoran Vučurević and Stojan Žuža.
Last year, during the night of September 28-29, the memorial at Kazani was desecrated — red spray-paint read: “Long live Caco in us”.
According to the Association of Prisoners’ Camps of Republika Srpska, there were 126 camps for Serbs in Sarajevo during the war. According to the report of the Independent International Commission for the Investigation of the Crimes Against Serbs in Sarajevo from 1991-95, about 3,000 Serb civilians were killed and 1,700 seriously wounded. Of the 2,907 civilian deaths, 714 (25 %) were killed at their doorsteps.
Source: RTRS
