Crimes against Bosniaks in Čajniče: War criminal Duško Kornjača found refuge in Serbia

(Patria) - The Association for Social Research and Communication (UDIK) reminds the public of the anniversary of the war crimes against Bosniaks in Čajniče. During May 1992, Bosniak civilians who had been previously captured in the town or surrounding villages, as well as on the road towards Pljevlja while trying to escape the war, were killed at the hunting lodge location in Mostina near Čajniče.

Data from the Institute for Missing Persons of Bosnia and Herzegovina shows that 138 missing persons were reported in the area of Čajniče. Victims were exhumed from a total of 32 locations, with nine mass graves discovered. The largest grave was located in Mostina, from which the remains of 18 victims were exhumed in September 2002. The Mostina site concealed six more mass graves from which the bodies of a total of 60 victims were exhumed.

The most horrific story was revealed by a mass grave found in the Čudanj forest in 2006, where the remains of an entire family lay hidden fourteen years after the crime. This was the Mahmutović family from the village of Mahrevići, who sought refuge from the criminal hand by fleeing from the village of Mahrevići towards Goražde. First, the remains of the mother Hajrija and her two children, one-and-a-half-year-old Amrudin and four-year-old Amra, were found. Next to them was a bundle containing baby bottles with milk, baby onesies, and woolen socks. Only a few hundred meters away at this location, in an individual grave, the remains of Amir Mahmutović, Hajrija's husband, were also found.

The Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina conducted several cases against members of the Army of Republika Srpska (VRS) related to war crimes committed in this area. It sentenced Milorad Živković, Milun Kornjača, Milosav Jovanović, Marijan Jovanović, and Slavka Jovanović to prison terms ranging from six to eleven years. Duško Tadić and Stevo Jovanović were acquitted of the charges. In 2021, UDIK documented these cases in a publication titled "War Crimes in Čajniče – Verdicts".

In June 2015, the Court of BiH confirmed an indictment charging the accused Duško Kornjača with having "in the period from mid-April 1992 to the end of June 1992, in the area of Čajniče municipality, as part of a wide and systematic attack by the Territorial Defense and the Police Station of the Serb municipality of Čajniče, as President of the Crisis Staff, later commander of the war staff of the Serb municipality of Čajniče, and President of the Municipal Assembly and Minister of Defense in the Government of the Serb Autonomous Region of Herzegovina, as a conscious participant in a joint criminal enterprise, planned and ordered the persecution of non-Serb population from Čajniče municipality".

Although it is widely known that Duško Kornjača lives in Novi Sad, he remains inaccessible to the judicial authorities of Bosnia and Herzegovina. This year again, we appeal to the Republic of Serbia to stop providing refuge to war criminals. By ignoring their atrocities and Bosnia and Herzegovina's efforts to prosecute all those responsible for the war crimes of the nineties, Serbia only slows down the confrontation with the past, which is already a difficult process, and deepens the pain and inflicts new traumas on the victims' families.

On the occasion of the anniversary, we remember the murdered Bosniak civilians of Čajniče and its surroundings, it was announced from UDIK.