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Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Serbs Convicted of Burning Muslims alive in Visegrad


Sredoje Lukic was convicted of aiding and abetting his cousin Milan in one of the atrocities





THE HAGUE: A UN war crimes court convicted two Bosnian Serb cousins on Monday for a “callous” 1992 killing spree that included locking scores of Muslims in two houses and burning them alive.

Yugoslav war crimes tribunal judge Patrick Robinson said burning 119 Muslims to death in the eastern Bosnian town of Visegrad “exemplified the worst acts of inhumanity that one person may inflict on others.” He sentenced Milan Lukic to life in prison and Sredoje Lukic to 30 years.

Robinson said Milan Lukic was the ringleader in both incidents, helping herd victims into the houses, setting the fires and shooting those who tried to flee the flames.

The judgment said his cousin Sredoje Lukic aided and abetted in one of the blazes. Witnesses “vividly remembered the terrible screams of the people in the house,” Robinson said, adding that Milan Lukic used the butt of his rifle to herd people into the house, and said, “come on, let’s get as many people inside as possible

Milan Lukic also was convicted of murdering 12 other Muslims, shooting them in the back on the banks of the Drina River, which runs through Visegrad, so the current would sweep away their bodies. One of the victims was murdered in front of his wife and child.

Robinson said Milan Lukic “ignored the victims pleas for their lives,” as he and other Serb paramilitaries executed them with a single shot in the back before firing into the bodies of any men they believed were still alive.

Milan Lukic led a paramilitary group known as both the “White Eagles” and the “Avengers,” which terrorized Muslims in Visegrad. His cousin Sredoje was a local policeman and a member of the group. Both men were also convicted of cruelty for visiting a detention center to savagely beat Muslim inmates.

According to ICTY documents, based on the victims reports, some 3,000 Bosniaks were murdered during the violence in Višegrad and its surrounding, including some 600 women and 119 children. According to the Research and Documentation Center, 1661 Bosniaks were killed/missing in Višegrad.
According to the survivors and the report submitted to UNHCR by the Bosnian government, the Drina river was used to dump many of the bodies of the Bosniak men, women and children who were killed around the town and on the famous Mehmed Paša Sokolović Bridge, as well as the new one. Day after day, truckloads of Bosniak civilians were taken down to the bridge and riverbank by Serb paramilitaries, unloaded, slashed or shot, and thrown into the river. In one instance, during the murder of a group of 22 people on June 18, 1992, the Lukić's group tore out the kidneys of several individuals, while the others were tied to cars and dragged through the streets; their children were thrown from the bridge and shot at before they hit the water.The Bikavac and Pionirska case Many other victims were locked in a houses en masse and grenaded to death or burned alive. In one instance, 58 people (14 were men and the rest women and children) were identified as burned to death on the Serb holiday "Vidovdan" June 27, 1992, on Pionirska Street, leaving one female survivor - Zehra Turjacanin. Zehra testified a couple of times at the Hague Tribual:
Eliticide in Visegrad
Eliticide is defined as the systematic killing of a community’s political and economic leadership so that the community could not regenerate. After the Yugoslav People’s Army occupied Visegrad, the Serb Crisis Committee (”krizni stab” led by Serb Democratic Party) took control of the municipality. Leading Bosniak intellectuals, political leaders and activists, members of the Islamic Religious Community (Islamska Vjerska Zajednica) and Police officers were expelled from work, arrested, jailed, called for “informative talks”, or kept under house arrest. Serb Police officials gave Serb paramilitary groups lists of Bosniaks who possessed firearms, who then went individually man to man and asked them to turn in their firearms[11] Bosniak intellectuals were systematically murdered, these intellectuals included Safet Zejnilovic – Doctor; Fejzo Šabanija – Secretary at Party of Democratic Action (Bosniak political party); Zihnija Omerovic – leading member of the Territorial Defense; Himzo Demir – well- known Principal of Secondary School “Hamid Besirovic”; Salko Suceska – Engineer; Halil Ahmedspahic – Engineer; Behija Zukic – well-known owner of several businesses (Milan Lukic murdered Behija and her husband, stole her red Passat and drove it over the next couple of years); Tufo Tankovic – Principal of “Hasan Veletovac” School (This school would soon become a concentration camp); Safet Efendija Karaman – Imam (Muslim religious priest) at a mosque in Visegrad.
Milan Lukic was arrested in August 2005 in Argentina and sent for trial in The Hague.
Milan Lukic went on the run for seven years after he was indicted

http://www.arabnews.com/?page=4§ion=0&article=124728&d=21&m=7&y=2009
isegrad
http://www.fuckfrance.com/topic/3480319/1/World/Bosnian-Serb-Cousins-Convicted-of-Burning-Over-100-Muslims-Alive.html&replies=4
http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/main/news/21196/
http://www.france24.com/en/20090720-hague-icty-international-tribunal-yugoslavia-bosnia-muslims-Milan-Sredoje-Lukic
http://belgrade.usembassy.gov/archives/press/2005/b050810.html
http://www.bosniak.org/

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