Today we mark the 28th anniversary of the crime in Strpci, when members of the Army of Republika Srpska (VRS) took out and killed 20 passengers, non-Serb civilians, at a train station in Strpci (BiH) from a train running on the Belgrade-Bar route.Youth Initiative for Human Rights in Serbia (YIHR Serbia) and Youth Initiative for Human Rights in Montenegro (YIHR CG) recall the responsibility of state institutions of Serbia and Montenegro for this planned war crime against the citizens of FRY and demand that full responsibility be established – not only of the perpetrators but also of the originators of this crime, as well as to speed up investigations and court proceedings in both countries. Also, the families of victims in Serbia continue to be discriminated in terms of the status of civilian victims of war, while in Montenegro no one but Neboj\u0161a Ranisavljevi\u0107 has been prosecuted.<\/p>\n
We remind that Velija Muri\u0107, a lawyer for the families of persons who were abducted from the train 671 on the Belgrade-Bar line in \u0160trpci on February 27, 1993 and immediately executed, filed criminal charges against 14 senior former officials on May 20, 2002 and forwarded them to the federal State Prosecutor, Public Prosecutor’s Office of Serbia, Senior Prosecutor in Bijelo Polje and State Prosecutor of Montenegro. Most of these officials from Serbia and Montenegro have passed away since then, but judicial authorities of Serbia and Montenegro remain obliged to investigate and shed light on the abduction in \u0160trpci.<\/p>\n
Lawyer Muri\u0107 filed criminal charges against \u017divota Pani\u0107, former Chief of the General Staff of the Yugoslav Army, Milan Pani\u0107, former Prime Minister and Acting Minister of Defense, Dobrica \u0106osi\u0107, former President of FRY, Slobodan Milo\u0161evi\u0107, former President of Serbia, Marko Negovanovi\u0107, former Minister of Defense of Serbia, Dragoljub Ojdani\u0107, former Commander of the U\u017eice Corps, Jovica Stani\u0161i\u0107, former Chief of Serbian State Security Service, Branislav Kuzmanovi\u0107, former Assistant Minister of Defense of Serbia, Du\u0161an Lon\u010dar, former Deputy Commander of the U\u017eice Corps, Luka Dragi\u0107evi\u0107, former Commander of the Vi\u0161egrad Brigade, Damjan Mitra\u0161inovi\u0107, former Commander of VRS Gora\u017ede Brigade. The list also includes the former Chief of U\u017eice Secretariat of Internal Affairs, Bo\u0161ko Petri\u0107, former Commander of Uzice region police, Djordje Keri\u0107, Former Head of the Traffic Department of the Belgrade Railway, Josip Uj\u010di\u0107, as well as the former Chief of Security of the U\u017eice Corps.<\/p>\n
The application states that the abduction in \u0160trpci was planned with their knowledge, “because they had strictly confidential information about the abduction and did not take any action within their authority to prevent the abduction of civilians, citizens of the FRY, carried out by members of the Republika Srpska Army, which was under the command of Yugoslav Army officers at that time.”<\/p>\n
To date, the remains of only four victims have been found. Halil Zup\u010devi\u0107’s body was found at the end of 2009 on the shores of Lake Peru\u0107ac, and the remains of Rasim \u0106ori\u0107, Jusuf Rastoder and Ilijaz Li\u010dina were found in the same lake in 2010, while other victims are still being searched for.<\/p>\n
So far, only Neboj\u0161a Ranisavljevi\u0107 and Mi\u0107o Jovi\u010di\u0107 have been convicted of this crime. Neboj\u0161a Ranisavljevic\u0107 was sentenced by the High Court in Bijelo Polje (Montenegro) in 2003 to 15 years in prison. Mi\u0107o Jovi\u010di\u0107, against whom proceedings were conducted before the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina, pleaded guilty and was sentenced to five years in prison.<\/p>\n
Proceedings before the courts in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia are currently underway for the crime in \u0160trpci. The trial of ten indictees is under way before the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina, including Luka Dragi\u0107evi\u0107, commander of the VRS Vi\u0161egrad Brigade, and Boban Indji\u0107, commander of the Vi\u0161egrad Brigade Intervention Troop. In mid-December 2019, the Prosecutor’s Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina filed an indictment against Milan Luki\u0107 for this war crime.<\/p>\n
A procedure is being conducted before the War Crimes Chamber of the High Court in Belgrade against five members of the VRS Vi\u0161egrad Brigade for a crime committed in \u0160trpci, who are charged as direct perpetrators.<\/p>\n
Family members of victims of this crime, due to the discriminatory legislation in Serbia, which denies them rights only because they died outside the territory of Serbia (BiH) and because they were killed by VRS members, cannot obtain the status of family members of civilian war victims, which would provide them with symbolic benefits in the form of monthly cash benefits and social support.<\/p>\n
The victims of this crime are: Esad Kapetanovi\u0107, Ilijaz Li\u010dina, Fehim Bakija, \u0160e\u0107o Softi\u0107, Rifat Husovi\u0107, Halil Zup\u010devi\u0107, Senad \u0110e\u010devi\u0107, Jusuf Rastoder, Ismet Baba\u010di\u0107, Tomo Buzov, Adem Alomerovi\u0107, Muhedin Hani\u0107, Safet Preljevi\u0107, D\u017eafer Topuzovi\u0107 Fikret Memovi\u0107, Fevzija Zekovi\u0107, Nijazim Kajevi\u0107, Zvjezdan Zuli\u010di\u0107 and one unknown person. The victims were from Serbia and Montenegro, from Belgrade, Prijepolje, Bijelo Polje and Podgorica. The oldest victim was 59 and the youngest 16 years old.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Today we mark the 28th anniversary of the crime in Strpci, when members of the Army of Republika Srpska (VRS) took out and killed 20 passengers, non-Serb civilians, at a train station in Strpci (BiH) from a train running on the Belgrade-Bar route.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4630,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4629","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/yihr.me\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4629","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/yihr.me\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/yihr.me\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yihr.me\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yihr.me\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4629"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/yihr.me\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4629\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yihr.me\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4630"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/yihr.me\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4629"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yihr.me\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4629"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yihr.me\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4629"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}