Posted on 01/07/2003 8:03:45 AM PST by Destro
Bloody Christmas Eve
6 January 2003
PRAGUE, Czech Republic--Christmas celebrations in Bosnia and Herzegovina were darkened when a Bosnian Croat man and his two daughters were brutally murdered in their home in the village of Kostajnica in northern Herzegovina.
On 26 December, police arrested a 25-year-old Bosnian Muslim man, Muamer Topalovic, for the murders, though no charges have yet been made and police are unsure of the suspect’s motives. The suspect’s father, however, has attested to his son’s nationalist sentiments and religious fanaticism.
According to police, Topalovic arrived at the home of Andjeljko Andjelic around 10 p.m. on 24 December and opened fire with a rifle on Andjelic and his son and two daughters, who were celebrating Christmas Eve with three relatives. Andjelic and his two daughters, Zorica and Mara, were killed almost instantly. Andjelic’s son Marinko survived the gunshots and is currently in the hospital.
Iva Stojanovic, the granddaughter of the murdered Andjeljko, said that she was in the living room with her two aunts when a man suddenly burst into their home and started shooting. Stojanovic told the Mostar daily Dnevni list on 1 January that the intruder was dressed in all black with his face fully covered.
“He told us to stay calm and he wouldn’t hurt us,” the paper quoted Stojanovic as saying. “Uncle Marinko jumped to try take his gun from him, and then he shot him. After that he shot my grandfather and aunts Mara and Zorica. During that time I was hiding under a table with Aunt Mira,” she said. Stojanovic said that the whole ordeal lasted no more than 10 minutes, after which the intruder escaped.
Andjelic had returned to his home in Kostajnica four years ago after having fled the village during the war. He was the first Bosnian Croat to return to the area after the war.
According to Andjelic’s neighbors, this was the first such incident locally that could possibly be linked to ethnic tension. In other areas of the country, scare tactics and even murder have been used to keep refugees from returning to their prewar homes.
Mirhunisa Zukic, president of the Bosnian Refugee Union, said that nationalists in Bosnia are attempting to keep the flames of ethnic hatred alive by using ignorant people to maintain a wartime atmosphere.
“Still, seven years after the war, every day we have incidents. Serbs are burning down the houses of Bosniak and Croat returnees, Croats are threatening Bosniaks and Serbs, and Bosniaks do same to Croats and Serbs,” Zukic told the Sarajevo-based BiHPress news agency on 28 December.
According to Zukic, such murders are not rare. Five days after the Andjelic family murder, a 70-year-old Muslim woman was killed in her home in the Republika Srpska entity of Bosnia. She had returned to her prewar home only five days earlier.
Local media and political and religious institutions have dubbed the Andjelic family murder as the most tragic postwar criminal act in the federation entity of Bosnia.
Salko Hondo, the mayor of the village of Otelezani, where the suspect was born, told BiHPress that Topalovic has brought shame to his village and his religion. “We are all ashamed for what he has done. We wanted to attend the funeral, but we were afraid that would further hurt the Andjelic family,” said Hondo.
After learning that his son had been arrested on suspicion of a triple murder, Topalovic’s father, Avdo Topalovic, told local media that his son deserved to be punished. “Of course I judge him for what he has done and I want him to be severely punished for that,” the father told the Sarajevo daily Dnevni Avaz on 28 December.
“But I also want the police to find and punish those people who made him what he has become. After he met one mujahedeen in Konjic three years ago, he changed completely and turned his back on our real faith,” Topalovic’s father said. He seems to have little doubt that his son is guilty of the triple murder, saying that after his son killed the three Bosnian Croats, he came home and went to bed. The police arrived two days later.
According to Topalovic’s father, Topalovic had joined up with the mujahedeen movement in 1996 despite his family’s disapproval. Topalovic become known to the Bosnian public as a man who tried to kill Slobodan Milosevic--at that time Serbian president. Topalovic’s father said that in 1998 he had read in a newspaper that his son was in prison in Serbia, charged with the attempted assassination of Milosevic.
In the spring of 1998, Topalovic headed for Belgrade to kill Milosevic in retaliation for his role in the massacre of Bosnian Muslims during the 1992-1995 war in Bosnia. Topalovic was arrested immediately when he attempted to kill a Belgrade taxi driver who was bragging about his success in fighting against Bosnian Muslims in Republika Srpska. Topalovic spent three and a half years in Serbian prisons. After that his father said that he returned to Konjic--near Kostajnica--where his religious fanaticism grew.
The triple murder prompted local and state police to launch an investigation into persons connected with terrorist organizations. So far, police have searched 10 locations in the Konjic region.
Lejla Trivun, spokesperson for the Konjic Interior Ministry, told the daily Oslobodjenje that the ministry has uncovered a handful of documents and videocassettes that prove the involvement of unnamed persons in terrorist organizations, as well as a cache of automatic shotguns, munitions, and explosives. Trivun said that five people have so far been arrested in connection with the investigation, but their identities have not yet been released to the public.
--by Anes Alic
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God bless the Sebs who foaugh al-Qaeda when it wasn't cool.
Funny how the media is silent about the Christmas eve and Christmas day killings of Christians in Bosnian and Kosovo and FYROM. The death toll form that Balkans at the hands of the Bosnian and Albanian factions of al-Qaeda stand at 3 Croatians killed in Bosnia, 1 Christian killed in a road side bomb in Kosovo and 1 Christian dead in FYROM with many wounded.
FREE SLOBO!!!
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