Kamenica: In November '93, victims were exhumed from Kazani, 14 people were arrested and convicted for the murders

In early November 1993, while the war raged, the bodies of victims from Kazani, and two locations near Grm Maline and Gaj, were exhumed. They were killed by members of the former 10th Mountain Brigade commanded by Mušan Topalović Caco. The order for exhumation was signed by the then President of the Sarajevo Military Court, and now a lawyer, Idriz Kamenica. The military prosecutor at the time was Ismet Mehić, writes the Patria News Agency.

- We first learned that murders were happening in that area as early as July 27 of that year. However, due to known circumstances, nothing could be done because Caco controlled that part of the city, so we had to wait for the then-civilian and military authorities to deal with the members of the 10th Mountain Brigade who resisted being brought under the control of the Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

In an armed conflict with them, on October 26 and 27, 1993, during the "Trebević" operation, 19 members of the Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina were killed. Mušan Topalović Caco killed nine members of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, six of whom were buried in Veliki Park in Sarajevo.

After they were brought under the control of the military and civilian authorities, at the beginning of November, I signed the order for exhumation, which was then carried out and led by judge Nihad Šeremet. There are minutes and court files for everything I am saying. Nothing is hidden. 21 bodies were exhumed from Kazani at that time, and the other eight from the locations of Gaj and Malina, which are near Kazani - says Idriz Kamenica for the Patria News Agency.

Kamenica adds that all the speculation currently circulating in the media, attempts to increase the number of victims, and the untruths that stones were deliberately thrown into Kazani after the war and that the pit was mined, are classic propaganda and lies.

He notes that the Kazani case is the first case where, during the fiercest fighting in besieged Sarajevo, the then military and civilian authorities had the courage to arrest and prosecute all those involved in these murders, proving that Kazani was not a political plan, unlike systematic and planned crimes committed against Bosniaks.  

The exhumed bodies were buried in the then "Stadion" cemetery. 15 bodies were identified, and the problem of further identification is also caused by DNA discrepancies.

Among the identified were Predrag Šalipur, a member of the Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the 10th Mountain Brigade commanded by Mušan Topalović Caco. Šalipur and Caco were neighbors and close friends. Šalipur was buried in 2007 at the Bare City Cemetery in Sarajevo.

Also identified were a Croat, Ranko Frankić, and a Bosniak, Ago Šteta, who were killed and thrown into Kazani.

According to witness testimonies during the court proceedings against the perpetrators of these murders, as Amor Mašović, director of the Institute for Missing Persons of Bosnia and Herzegovina, told us, the body of only one more victim has not been found.

Fourteen members of the 10th Mountain Brigade were prosecuted by the Military Court in Sarajevo a year after the brutal murders, in 1994. For the murder of Serbian civilians at Kazani, they were sentenced to prison terms ranging from ten months to six years.

The Commission for Missing Persons of Republika Srpska attempted to search for more victims' bodies at the Kazani site on August 23, 2001, persistently claiming they exist, but found nothing.

Operation carried out on the order of Alija Izetbegović

The Trebević II operation was carried out on the order of the President of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Alija Izetbegović, dated October 25, 1993, and was designated as the largest military-police operation aimed at "establishing order within its ranks and returning rogue military groups to the system." One of the reasons was that, in addition to numerous criminal activities, Caco and his soldiers were killing Serbs from Sarajevo at the Kazani location on Trebević.