The 33rd anniversary of the Battle of Brčanska Malta is being marked, where this event is treated in Tuzla as the Liberation Day of the city, and in the Republika Srpska it is the day of the suffering of members of the former Jugoslav National Army (JNA).
On this day, 32 years ago, on May 15, 1992, during the movement of a column of JNA soldiers and reservists from the “Husinska buna” barracks in Tuzla, a conflict occurred between members of the Tuzla Public Security Station and members of the then Yugoslav People’s Army (JNA), soldiers and reservists who were leaving Tuzla in a military convoy.
Members of the Tuzla Public Security Station managed to defend the city, and May 15 became one of the most important dates in the history of Tuzla.
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 conflict on Brčanska Malta.
On the other hand, the War Crimes Investigation Center of Republika Srpska states that 54 soldiers were killed and 44 wounded on that occasion.
The case, known as the “Tuzla Column”, has been the subject of several court proceedings.
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 the war advisor to the Chief of the Tuzla Public Safety Station (SJB), Ilija Jurišić, of the charge of ordering the attack on JNA soldiers.
Jurišić was previously sentenced to 12 years in prison by a first-instance verdict of the War Crimes Department of the Higher Court in Belgrade in 2013.
In its explanation of the decision, the Court of Appeal notes 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 issued on the basis of incorrectly and incompletely established facts.
