“Destined by God to fight for justice his whole life”.
These are the words that a convict for war crimes committed in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) wrote on his Facebook profile.
Attached to the text is also a photograph in which he shows a rifle, while standing in a forest with a helmet on his head, dressed in a military uniform on which “Armed Forces of Russia” is written.
That is one of ten posts he shared via this popular social network from the beginning of April to the end of May 2025, in which he displayed his experiences from Ukraine, where he joined Russian forces in the invasion of that country.
He was, however, sentenced in Serbia to 13 years in prison for war crimes against the civilian population in the area of Bratunac. As stated in the verdict, as a member of the Army of Republika Srpska (VRS), more precisely the Bratunac Light Infantry Brigade, he participated in the capture of 14 civilians of Bosniak ethnicity, of whom eight perished. The verdict also states that he raped a Bosniak woman in a house in Bratunac.
Research revealed that Novak Stjepanovic avoided serving the prison sentence in Serbia and joined the army of Russia.
A month after Stjepanovic published the last photograph from the battlefield in Ukraine, the Court of Appeal in Belgrade on June 13th, 2025, pronounced a final verdict against him for war crimes in BiH with a prison sentence of 13 years.
The verdict describes that Stjepanovic, on May 20th, 1992, in the village of Borkovac, beat captured civilians with fists and legs, took money and valuables from them, and after that, the group of civilians was taken to a nearby stream, where they were killed. Besides that, details of sexual violence that Stjepanovic committed against a 19-year-old woman, who was imprisoned in the Zinc and Lead Mine “Sase” with her family, are also listed.
Edina Karic from BiH, who testified to the crime of rape for which Stjepanovic was convicted, says she is disappointed in the judicial system in which those convicted of war crimes do not serve their sentence.
“I cannot say even one percent that I trust them anymore”, added Karic, Detektor writes.
