Before the official start of aggression against Bosnia and Herzegovina, the JNA liquidated Bosniak intellectuals

On January 12, 1992, a funeral prayer was held for Bosnian intellectual Abdulah Kovačević from Čelić, whom Serbian intelligence agents killed because he tried to warn the Bosniak population about the crimes being prepared against them, writes the Bosnian news agency Patria.

Kovačević is considered the first victim of the Serbian regime in northeastern Bosnia, where only a few months later mass crimes would follow across the country, which began in 1992.

It is believed that Kovačević was one of the most educated Bosniaks in the Bijeljina region. In 1990, he tried to warn Bosniaks that the noose was tightening around them. However, at the end of 1991, he mysteriously disappeared.

The search for him lasted about a month. After demonstrations in front of the municipal building in Lopare, the then president of the SDS (Kerović), later a Chetnik vojvoda, told the gathered crowd in front of the municipality:

- Don't worry, you will get Abdulah dead or alive. The Bosniaks knew he was dead.

Two weeks later, hunters found Kovačević on the slopes of Vlastak on Mount Majevica. He had been thrown from a helicopter that had been circling over Majevica that day. It was a JNA helicopter. Witnesses describe that crosses were carved into his body, his body was burned by fire, full of fractures and bruises.

The funeral prayer in Vražići, held on January 12, 1992, was attended by more than ten thousand Bosniaks. His killers were never found and prosecuted. A few months after his death, the notorious Željko Ražnatović Arkan and his units, in cooperation with the local police and army, killed and expelled thousands of Bosniaks from this part of Bosnia and Herzegovina, writes Patria.