The Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina confirmed the indictment against Mensud Keleštura and Hazim Jašarević for the crime in Vitez in June 1993 in which eight children of Croatian nationality were killed and five wounded.
The Court announced that the accused are accused of participating in an artillery attack on the civilian population of the suburban settlement of Podgradina on June 10, 1993. Keleštura, in his capacity as the commander of the 325th Mountain Brigade of the Army of BiH, is accused of having ordered the subordinate Brigade Artillery Group (BrAG) to carry out an artillery attack on Podgradina, which was inhabited almost exclusively by the civilian population of Croatian nationality, even though he was aware that this attack, carried out during the armistice and in a populated place, could lead to civilian casualties.
Jašarević, as stated, is accused that as the commander of the BrAG, he executed that order through subordinate members of the artillery group and that he also knew that it was not a military objective and that there could be consequences for the civilian population, to which he agreed.
It is further stated that BrAG members subordinate to Jašarević fired one 120 mm caliber artillery mortar mine from the locality of Podlazine, Vitez municipality, which fell between family houses on the so-called children’s playground. “At the basket”, on which occasion eight children of Croatian nationality were killed and five more were wounded as a result of a mine explosion.
The indictment against Keleštura and Jašarević was brought at the end of the year, which Detektor wrote about earlier.
In the show “TV Justice” and the project “Forgotten Victims of War”, Detektor brought the story of the crime in which children died in Vitez, for which no one was previously held accountable.
The youngest victim of the explosion on June 10, 1993 was nine-year-old Augustina Grebenar. Her 12-year-old brother Velimir also died. The victims include 12-year-old Milan and 18-year-old Sanja Garić, also brother and sister, as well as 15-year-olds Dragan Ramljak, Draženko Čečura and Sanja Križanović, and ten-year-old Boris Antičević.
The grenade was fired during a ceasefire between the Croatian Defense Council and the Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Detektor also wrote about the memory of the killed and the lack of accountability in 2020, when a spokesperson for the Prosecutor’s Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina confirmed that the case is in the Special Department for War Crimes and that it is being worked on.
A hearing will be scheduled in the coming period at which the accused should plead guilty, BIRN BiH reports.
