“The Butcher’s Trail” – the book everyone in BiH is talking about: Who were Sarajevo’s hunters of war criminals

Julian Borger’s book „The Butcher’s Trail“, published by Baybook, will undoubtedly become one of the biggest bestsellers. It is about the hunt for war criminals in Serbia, Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. The book is a page-turner, and Borger has crafted the narrative with dramatic documentary flair, like the most gripping film, writes the Patria news agency.  

In „The Butcher’s Trail“, Borger even describes the background of the assassination of Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Đinđić. He speaks of the dramatic moments when the Tribunal sought the archives of the Croatian Army (HV) and the Croatian Defence Council (HVO), which Tuđman’s regime had hidden in an abandoned house near Zagreb. Stjepan Mesić and Ivica Račan had just come to power and were trying to cooperate with the Tribunal and the relentless Western powers. The handover of the important archive met with fierce resistance from Croatia’s military top brass. It almost led to an armed conflict between the regular police and members of the old intelligence structures.

Croatia on the brink of armed conflict  

Of course, readers will be most drawn to the hunt for two key men, Radovan Karadžić and Momčilo Krajišnik. It is incredible what information the war crime hunters possess and how much material the author managed to gather. Karadžić’s hiding and his stay in Belgrade under the false identity of Dr. Dragan Dabić, as well as his arrest, are described in detail for the first time in this book. The arrest of Krajišnik is one of the most intriguing and perfectly executed operations.

One of the brilliant thriller stories is the discovery and arrest of the criminal Ivica Rajić from Kiseljak. Rajić was hiding in Split. Since he had smuggled goods with Serbian officers throughout the war and sold them to the besieged and starving Sarajevo, he used that money to open a family restaurant in Split, where, under a false identity, he worked as a kind of food deliveryman. 

However, by far the most shocking and dramatic story in „The Butcher’s Trail“ concerns the arrest of the brutal criminal Stevan Todorović from Bosanski Šamac, and Dragan Nikolić, known as Jenki.

Stevan Todorović fled to Serbia, where he started working in a nightclub on Zlatibor for Boško Radonjić, whom Borger describes as a high-ranking member of the Gotti mafia clan in New York. Radonjić presented himself as a great friend of Radovan Karadžić. The hunters soon tracked every step of the monster from Šamac, Todorović. He was arrested in Serbia. Similarly, Dragan Nikolić Jenki, the executioner from Vlasenica, was also arrested. It was known that the criminals were arrested by Serbs, but no one knew who they were. 

Sarajevo Serbs arrest criminals

At first, it was believed that these arrests were carried out by members of the criminal group Spiders, led by Jugoslav Petrušić. But when other arrests of criminals occurred, the Spiders were then tried for the assassination attempt on Milošević. It turned out that Todorović and Jenki were arrested by some other Serbs. The version presented by Borger states that the CIA hired four Sarajevo Serbs, patriots and members of the Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina. A fifth person in this circle of Serbs is mentioned as their friend, a young man with a Bosniak name, Amir Mirankić. Borger describes this group as exceptionally brave young men, loyal to Bosnia and Herzegovina and loving their Sarajevo. 

When you read Borger’s „The Butcher’s Trail“, you will enjoy every moment. Borger has created an objective, documentary, perfect, and grippingly interesting book about the war in BiH. Reading „The Butcher’s Trail“, people in Bosnia and Herzegovina will finally be able to see everything they never even suspected. During these twenty years of peace, alongside the building of state institutions, a parallel world was unfolding behind the curtains, of which we only knew the final arrests of war criminals. After this book, that unknown world will be fully revealed to you. The book was translated from English by Senada Kreso.