In comments on the Facebook social network, Damir Došen, convicted of war crimes, insulted the victims in Prijedor with derogatory names and denied that there were white tapes in that city, while the camp inmates’ association states that he is not the first to deny crimes. Došen was sentenced by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) to five years in prison, after admitting that he was a shift leader in the “Keraterm” camp in Prijedor in 1992.
“I am guilty because I agreed to be in “Keraterm”. It’s my fault for not helping them more. Because of this, I am guilty before God, before these people and before you, Honorable Judge. I feel sorry for every person who has suffered, for every family who has lost a loved one, for every child who has lost a father, for every mother who has lost a son. I want my words, my words to be heard by everyone, especially my neighbors who were imprisoned just because they were not Serbs,” Došen stated in the courtroom of the Hague Tribunal in October 2001.
On the Facebook profile of a certain Dean Deki, under a post about Prijedor, profile user Damir Kain Došen responded to one of the comments that “the white stripes are a fabrication”, and called Bosniaks by derogatory names.
“You invented the white stripes, as well as all the lies you have told and continue to repeat like parrots to this day, provide at least one, any evidence of the white stripes… there is none, because you did not wear the white stripes. You have done yourself the pleasure of being arrested and detained in a ceramic tile factory for your massive participation in attacks on the Serbian army and police,” the Facebook comment states.
The Hague judgments established that the premises of the ceramic tile factory “Keraterm” was one of the camps in Prijedor, which the Crisis Staff in that city opened after Serbian forces carried out a series of attacks on villages and areas inhabited by non-Serbs. The judgments further state that detainees began arriving at “Keraterm” around May 25 and that the camp was closed at the beginning of August 1992, and during that period a large number of inmates were killed and subjected to abuse.
Mirsad Duratović from the Prisoners’ Association ‘Prijedor ’92’ tells Detektor that he is not surprised and that all the convicts deny all crimes after returning from The Hague.
“He’s not the only one. In The Hague, they probably flattered the Hague Tribunal, to get a lower sentence, and here they are flattering their local population ,”says Duratović.
He further states that the very confession of the crime was conditioned by some other things.
“So, in order to get a lesser sentence, they had to name other co-perpetrators of those crimes in which they also participated. Now they are here denying all that, they are denying the crimes, just to justify themselves here with their people, that is, with their comrades,” says Duratović.
The Hague Tribunal, in at least two final judgments, established that the non-Serb population of Prijedor was forced to hang white sheets in front of their houses and wear white scarves on their hands “as a sign of loyalty to the Serbian authorities”. In its verdicts, the tribunal established that several thousand people were killed during the war in Prijedor, as well as that thousands of Bosniaks and Croats passed through the camps.
The white stripes, as court-established facts, were previously denied by various groups from Prijedor, such as “Samopoštovanja” and “Principa”, who then influenced the ban on peaceful walks on the occasion of the Day of White Ribbons, and they constantly denied the existence of white ribbons with their narratives and labeled activists fighting for the construction of a monument to the murdered children of Prijedor.
Aleksandar Knjeginjić, who was also previously convicted of crimes in Prijedor, started a petition against the Day of White Ribbons in that city last year. A complaint was filed against him, but the Prosecutor’s Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina has not yet made a decision.
“When asked by the Prosecutor’s Office whether a complaint had been received against Došen, we did not receive an answer until the publication of the text,” states the Balkan Research Network of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BIRN BiH).
