Orić Case: Arifović, arrested, had his brother killed by the Serbian army two months before Zalazje

Three fighters from Srebrenica have been arrested on charges of committing crimes against civilian prisoners. Former members of the Army of RBiH are linked to Naser Orić and are suspected of killing persons of Serbian nationality.

The arrested are Izet Arifović, Suad Smajlović, and Amir Salihović, writes the BiH news agency Patria.    

The suspects are accused of capturing eight civilians of Serbian nationality during an attack on the village of Zalazje on July 12, 1992. They then, it is claimed, handed them over with tied hands, along with four dead bodies brought on the back of a truck to the police station in Srebrenica. Izet Arifović is suspected of shooting one of these civilians of Serbian nationality at close range with a firearm, and suspect Salihović took the remaining prisoners in a truck in an unknown direction, after which they were no longer seen alive, and after the war, the remains of some of the victims were found and exhumed, while others are still being searched for.

The first reactions from Srebrenica residents to the arrest of three defense fighters are turbulent. Most of them claim to be facing fabricated charges and coached witnesses again.

Several of Patria's interlocutors from Bratunac said that it is questionable whether Arifović was even in Zalazje in July 1992, because during those months he was seriously wounded in the legs, after which he was transported by UNPROFOR helicopter to Tuzla for treatment in 1993.

- There must be medical documentation about Arifović's injury in Srebrenica or Tuzla – said one of Patria's interlocutors, in whose house near Bratunac Arifović stayed until his relocation to Tuzla in 1993, and who wished to remain anonymous.

Two months before the murder of Serbian civilians in Zalazje, the Serbian army brutally killed about 120 residents of Bratunac in the primary school "Vuk Karadžić" in Bratunac. Among them was Arifović's brother, Redžo. With the fall of Srebrenica in 1995, Redžo's son Husejn was also killed. He was buried on the 20th anniversary of the genocide in Srebrenica.

Hundreds of Bosniaks from Bratunac and the surrounding area were imprisoned in the Vuk Drašković school, after which they were killed with blunt objects, pipes, or in some other monstrous way... Some died from suffocation.

- Arifović would not commit crimes even for revenge. He showed his tolerance by restoring the house where he often stayed in Bratunac immediately after the end of the aggression against BiH – claims Arifović's relative.

Interestingly, previous testimonies stated that the captured civilians were killed in Zalazje, while today the testimony is that they were taken from Zalazje to Srebrenica and allegedly killed there.

Srebrenica residents unanimously claim that the deceased were soldiers, not civilians. They refer to the available documentation of the Army of Republika Srpska, stating that the mentioned persons, who are listed as captured and then killed, were killed as members of the armed formations of the VRS on the front lines in Zalazje, writes Patria.