Tuzla residents on May 15, '92, did not attack anyone, they defended their city and freedom

(Patria) - Today marks the 34th anniversary of the Battle of Brčanska Malta. On that day, members of the then JNA, soldiers and reservists leaving Tuzla in a military convoy, clashed with police officers whose task was to escort the column out of the city.

As Ilija Jurišić, who was acquitted of war crimes charges, testified later, he received information from the field that day that fire was opened from the column on police patrols and surrounding buildings, after which the Tuzla police were given permission by command to "respond to fire with fire". On that occasion, trucks caught fire, in which soldiers commanded by Mile Dubajić perished.

This date is marked as the beginning of the defense of the City of Tuzla and that part of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Three members of the Public Security Station Tuzla and 33 JNA soldiers from the column died at Brčanska Malta.

The case, known as the "Tuzla Convoy", was the subject of several court proceedings.

The first case was initiated by surviving participants of the convoy, who in 1999 submitted documentation to the Hague Tribunal through the Association of Prisoners of Republika Srpska. The Hague Tribunal returned the case to the jurisdiction of the BiH judiciary, after which the District Prosecutor's Office in Bijeljina initiated proceedings. The case was then transferred to the jurisdiction of the BiH Prosecutor's Office, which in 2009 suspended the investigation against the wartime mayor of Tuzla, Selim Bešlagić, and others.

However, the most famous trial in this case was the one conducted before the judiciary of the Republic of Serbia. In 2016, the Court of Appeal in Belgrade definitively acquitted Ilija Jurišić, wartime advisor to the head of the Public Security Station (SJB) Tuzla, of charges that he ordered an attack on JNA soldiers. Jurišić was previously sentenced to 12 years in prison by the first-instance verdict of the War Crimes Department of the Higher Court in Belgrade in 2013.

In the explanation of the decision, the Court of Appeal noted that "the proof of the allegations from the indictment of the War Crimes Prosecutor's Office remained at the level of doubt", and that the first-instance verdict was rendered on the basis of a wrongly and incompletely established factual situation.

After evaluating and analyzing the evidence presented, the Court concluded that there was no direct evidence that Jurišić committed the criminal offense he was accused of.