Today is the 34th anniversary of the Battle of Brčanska Malta. On this day, May 15, 1992, during the movement of a column of soldiers and reservists of the former JNA from the “Husinska buna” barracks in Tuzla, there was shooting, followed by a clash between members of the Tuzla Public Security Station and members of the JNA, soldiers and reservists who were leaving Tuzla in a military convoy.
According to the Truth, Justice, Reconciliation Foundation, three members of the Tuzla Public Security Station and 33 JNA soldiers from the column were killed in the clash at Brčanska Malta.
On the other hand, the Republika Srpska War Crimes Investigation Center states that 54 soldiers were killed on that occasion, while 44 were wounded.
The Serbian side claims that the column was attacked, while the territorial defense and the Tuzla police claim that the shooting started from the JNA column.
Members of the Tuzla Public Security Station managed to defend the city, and May 15th became one of the most important dates in the history of Tuzla. The city of Tuzla marks this day as the Day of Defense of the City. They emphasize that the Tuzla authorities and those who secured the city 34 years ago did not commit a war crime. They recall that the Court of Appeal in Belgrade finally acquitted Ilija Jurišić of war crime charges, because there was no evidence that he ordered the attack on the column of JNA soldiers.
Families of the fallen soldiers and delegations from the Republika Srpska will mark the anniversary of the memory of those killed in Bijeljina and Tuzla.
Let us recall that the case known as the “Tuzla Column” was the subject of several court trials.
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 finally acquitted Ilija Jurišić, the wartime advisor to the Chief of the Tuzla Public Security Station, of charges that he ordered an attack on JNA soldiers.
Jurišić had previously been sentenced to 12 years in prison by a first-instance verdict of the War Crimes Chamber of the Higher Court in Belgrade in 2013.
In its explanation of the decision, the Court of Appeal noted that “the evidence of the allegations in 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 incorrectly and incompletely established facts, BHRT writes.
