Bosnian Case Pours Salt on a War Wound

Ibrahim Djedovic reported for work as a newly elected legislator last spring and quickly found himself whisked away by police.

Frantic efforts by international diplomats to save him failed, and Djedovic was summarily stripped of his parliamentary immunity and imprisoned on war crimes charges.

Today his case has become a symbol of unhealed wounds from Europe’s deadliest conflict since World War II and a stark illustration of this damaged society’s inability to mete out justice.

“This is a critical test for this country’s court system, and so far the courts have failed that test,” said Peggy Hicks, a U.S. lawyer who heads the human rights office of the principal agency implementing U.S.-brokered Bosnian peace accords.

Djedovic was denied access to legal counsel for months. The indictment against him was leaked to a pro-government newspaper before he or his attorneys knew its contents. Charges are vague, and the official investigation, rights monitors say, was flawed.

Sarajevo’s mostly Muslim authorities have targeted Djedovic because of his role in a particularly odd and painful chapter of the war. He is not an enemy Serb or Croat, but a fellow Muslim--all the more a traitor.

In the war, Djedovic sided with renegade Muslim businessman Fikret Abdic, who declared an “autonomous” region in northwestern Bosnia that fought against the Sarajevo-based government and sometimes collaborated with Serbs and Croats. To this day, Abdic and his followers are regarded by many Sarajevo Muslims as the most unforgivable of war criminals.

Djedovic, 35, was Abdic’s deputy head of defense and the interior with key positions of responsibility over security and, prosecutors allege, prison camps where more than 6,000 Muslim opponents were detained, tortured or beaten.

The 15-page indictment, issued Oct. 6, names at least 12 people who were killed in the camps. The trial is scheduled to begin in December.

Bosnia’s December 1995 peace pact was intended to end animosities nationwide. But Sarajevo-sponsored persecution of Abdic followers in northwestern Bosnia, especially around the town of Velika Kladusa, persisted. Those who tried to return to their homes or take up political activity met violence.

In municipal elections last month, members of Abdic’s party won most seats in Velika Kladusa but are afraid to try to occupy them, according to international monitors. The national Muslim party of Bosnian President Alija Izetbegovic has threatened to kill any Abdic supporters who attempt to take office, the monitors said.

Djedovic considered his arrest part of the Sarajevo government’s attempt to send a chill through dissident political circles. “I was arrested because I am a key leader of the [Abdic] party,” he told the newspaper Dnevni Avez. “They want to scare and frighten people.”

Regardless of his guilt or innocence, Djedovic’s May detention was illegal because he had immunity at the time. Authorities of the Muslim-Croat federation based their action on a notice from the international war crimes tribunal at The Hague. The panel had ruled, in response to the government’s petition, that there was sufficient evidence to detain and investigate Djedovic.

“I don’t think we have the political circumstances that would allow a fair trial,” said Senka Nozica, an attorney for Djedovic and vice president of Bosnia’s chapter of the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights.

“This is logical because the wounds are still too fresh,” she said. “It is impossible to expect that just one or two years after the war, [the judiciary] can be completely professional. The Abdic followers are considered the absolute enemies of Bosnia-Herzegovina.”

Nozica has taken the Djedovic case at great personal risk because of the enormous unpopularity of the Abdic faction. Justice served for someone like Djedovic would introduce new, higher standards in the Bosnian legal system, Nozica said.

Hicks and other international officials say it is precisely the unusual focus on the Djedovic case, its complexity and political sensitivity, that should pressure authorities to follow proper procedures. Instead, international officials say, handling of the case is “a sham.”