CASE OF MEHMED ALEŠEVIĆ Media are silent when a witness lies, but they shout when a person collapses!

By: Amina Čorbo-Zećo

In a country where institutions have long lost the ability to distinguish justice from procedure, the case of Mehmed Alešević raises more important questions than the one for which he was accused. It is not just about a retrial, nor about admitting guilt in exchange for a lesser sentence, it is about an exhausting fight against a system that knows it makes mistakes, but rarely admits its own responsibility.

After being convicted on nine counts of the indictment in 2022, it was his family, not the judiciary, that moved the truth forward. It turned out that the key prosecution witness, Husien Ćerimagić, gave false testimony, for which he was finally convicted. However, when the verdict was overturned and a new trial was initiated, it was not a moment of relief. It was another circle through hell.

Alešević was by then a man of impaired health, exhausted by years of humiliation, and perhaps most difficultly, by disbelief in the institutions that should protect every person. He did not want a new trial. Although anyone normal would say, "Well, why not, when he can prove the truth?", they forget that justice is not just a verdict. Justice is a process. And when the process is unfair, it becomes a punishment in itself.

In the retrial, the indictment was reduced. Alešević pleaded guilty to six counts, probably not because he was guilty to the full extent of the charges, but because it was the only way to end this legal terror. The plea agreement, led by the Prosecutor's Office, was a shortcut mechanism for both the institutions and the accused.

And here we come to the deepest point of this story: where were the media when the key pillar of the first verdict collapsed? Where in the reports is the name of the man who lied under oath and sent a man to prison? He is not there. Ćerimagić, convicted of false testimony, disappeared from the narrative as if he never existed. Instead, all the headlines read: "Alešević pleaded guilty." The truth is much more complex and significantly more uncomfortable.

It is even more uncomfortable that the entire case was handled by prosecutor Vedrana Mijović, who, according to reliable information, treated some suspects more like a prosecutor with a predetermined verdict than an objective representative of the law. Her job is not to believe witnesses; her job is to verify them.

What did she do when Ćerimagić lied? Why didn't the system initiate a review on its own? Why did family persistence have to compensate for institutional negligence? The answer is clear: mostly 'false witnesses' accuse members of the Army of RBiH, and of course, in agreement with prosecutors, who are actively working on revisionism.

This case is not just an example of material fatigue, but human fatigue. A person who, along with all the burdens of war, had to prove he was not a monster, not only in court, but before a system that had already designed him that way.
And finally, if Ćerimagić lied once, what about all the other cases? Who will persevere to prove false witnesses?

If it is acknowledged that injustice was done to Alešević, what about the responsibility of those who enabled that injustice? If justice has been corrected, why is the feeling of injustice greater than ever?

Perhaps because in this country, injustice is no longer an incident. It is simply a procedure.