Sarajevo Embittered by Courts’ Silence Over Markale Massacre

Markale 1994

Sixteen years have passed since the first shelling of the Markale market place in Sarajevo and today another anniversary of the deaths of the dozens of victims is being marked.

Many people in the Bosnian capital remain deeply dissatisfied with criminal processing of the responsible individuals, and say they should face justice as soon as possible.

Only one person has been sentenced for the crime before the Hague Tribunal, ICTY, to date.    

Critics say they cannot understand why other perpetrators of the crime, as well as those then at the top of the Bosnian Serb military hierarchy, have not been tried.

Above all, they have in mind the former Bosnian Serb commander, Ratko Mladic, who has been indicted before the Tribunal for the Markale crime, among other things, but who is still on the run.  

While people in Sarajevo resent the slow pace of justice, judicial institutions maintain they have already passed the relevant documents about the 1994 massacre to the ICTY and are waiting for the crime to be processed before the Tribunal.

Markale remains a controversial political issue in Bosnia and Herzegovina, as officials in the Bosnian entity, the Republika Srpska, routinely deny Serb responsibility for the massacre.

They claim it was the work of the Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which they say carried out the bombing to bring about NATO intervention.  

Sarajevo was held under siege and shelled for 1,425 days by the Yugoslav National Army, JNA, and the Republika Srpska Army, VRS. During the siege the Markale market place was shelled twice.  

The first time was on February 5, 1994, when a mine-thrower projectile hit the market place, killing 67 and wounding more than 140.  After the second shelling, in late August 1995, NATO bombed VRS positions, which led to the end of the siege a short time later.  

“It happened during the rush hour at about noon [when] many people were at the market place,” said Esad Pozder, known as Dedo, recalling the first shelling in 1994.

“It exploded up there at the corner. I bent down and when I looked up I saw dead people lying around me,” he added. “Blood was pouring out. People’s arms and legs were cut off.”

Among the dead was his own sister. He still works at the market place.

Hakija Topic, then a cameraman for Bosnian state television, was also present at Markale that day. Shaken to the core by the horrific scenes he witnessed, Topic says he was barely aware of what he was filming. It was only after he watched the recording that he realized some of his friends and neighbours had been killed.  

Unforgettable horror:  

Years later, many Sarajevo citizens who shop at Markale every day vividly remember the horror of the shellings. “Despite the war and the siege, it is still hard to comprehend that such things could happen,” said Zlatan Hrelja.

Sanja Hadzic agreed. “All the perpetrators should have been brought in front of the courts a long time ago”, she said.

“This was not the work of an individual. The politicians must have approved the shelling,” she added. Concerning the failure to bring more people to trial, she felt “really disappointed”.

In November 2006, the Hague Tribunal sentenced Stanislav Galic, Commander of Sarajevo-Romanija Corp of the VRS, to life imprisonment for crimes committed in the siege of Sarajevo, including the Markale massacre.

Zlatan Hrelja said the trial of one person was not enough. “Many people must have been responsible for this,” he said. “There must have been someone higher up than Galic in the command hierarchy. That person must be tried.”

In the military hierarchy, Ratko Mladic was superior to Galic. The Tribunal charges Mladic with having “supported the long-lasting military campaign during which Bosnian Serb forces under his control, and particularly the Sarajevo-Romanija Corp, attacked civilians in Sarajevo using artillery, snipers and mine-throwers”.  

People in Sarajevo expect Mladic’s political superior, Radovan Karadzic, former President and Supreme Commander of the Republika Srpska, to be sentenced for the Markale crime and for the shelling of other buildings in the city. His trial is due to continue in March.  

The indictment alleges that Karadzic, in collaboration with other members of a joint criminal enterprise, formulated and executed a military strategy of shelling and sniping, aimed at mutilating, wounding, killing and terrorizing the population of Sarajevo.   

Prosecutions in Bosnia have still not filed any indictments pertaining to the shelling of the market place, however. They say the Markale crime scene inspection report and other available evidence have been submitted to the Hague Tribunal, which has the duty of trying those responsible.

“The shelling of Markale is a stumbling block and an subject of accusations at a political level in Bosnia and Herzegovina,” the Chief State Prosecutor, Milorad Barasin, has said.

“It is considered a war crime because there is a certain number of victims and injured parties. It is, therefore, logical that it [the justice process] has to be completed,” he added.

Barasin did not want to comment in greater detail on the issue, however, describing the Markale massacre as a matter for the Hague Tribunal.  

The Cantonal Prosecution in Sarajevo is not conducting any investigation to the crime, on the grounds that it has already submitted all the relevant documents to the Tribunal for use at the upcoming trial of Karadzic.

“When Radovan Karadzic was deprived of his liberty, this Office consigned to the Tribunal a report on the Markale crime scene inspection,” Jasmina Iftic, the Cantonal Prosecution spokesperson, noted.

The UN peacekeeping force in Bosnia, UNPROFOR, also conducted a crime scene inspection after the shelling, but it did not precisely determine the location from which the mine-thrower projectile was fired. This omission fed speculation that the projectile was fired from positions held by the Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina.  

However, on the basis of ballistic expertise conducted by Professor Berko Zecevic, the Hague Tribunal determined in 2004 that the projectile was fired from the area of the village of Mrkovici, north-east of the old part of Sarajevo, which the VRS controlled at the time.

“In terms of the projectile’s course, there is absolutely no doubt about the location from which it came,” Zecevic said.

People in Sarajevo are especially disappointed that doubts remain about the location from which the projectile was fired, saying they well know who was holding the city under siege at that time.  

“I was in the city during the war,” Ibrahim Sahacic recalled. “It is important to say who fired the projectile. This person has to be tried.”

Despite such wishes, judicial institutions in Bosnia say it is unlikely that any indictment will be filed for Markale case until the existing cases before the Hague Tribunal are completed.

For more on this story, see Episode 2: Sixteen Years After the Shelling of the Markale Market in Sarajevo

Dalio Sijah is a BIRN – Justice Report journalist. dalio.sijah@birn.eu.com. Justice Report is an online BIRN weekly publication. www.bim.ba