Mrdja Guilty Plea Sparks Anger

Prijedor police officer Darko Mrdja this week pleaded guilty to one of the most gruesome incidents of the Bosnian war, only five days before his trial was scheduled to begin on July 29.

Mrdja was accused of ordering 200 Bosnian Muslim and Croat men and boys to line up on the edge of a cliff on Mount Vlasic on August 21, 1992, and having them shot.

However, twelve of this number survived the execution, and their testimony resulted in a war crimes indictment for two counts of crimes against humanity and one of violations of laws or customs of war.

But on July 24, Mrdja pleaded guilty to murder and inhumane acts and, in exchange, the prosecution agreed to drop the most serious charge against him – extermination – and has recommended a sentence of 15-20 years in prison.

The move has sparked a row among survivors and missing persons organisations who believe the proposed sentence is too lenient for the crimes committed – and are outraged that, to date, the remains of many of those murdered have not been recovered.

Amor Masovic, the president of Bosnia's Commission for Missing Persons, told IWPR, “That kind of deal with a low profile criminal might be acceptable if the prosecution were able to determine the location of the victims' remains.

“Mrdja definitely knows the place of the second mass grave [where the bodies are believed to have been moved to]. If such a clause was included in the deal, that would be all right. Otherwise, the agreement cannot be justified.”

Victims groups also point out that several other war crimes suspects who did not negotiate plea agreements but were found guilty of lesser crimes are now serving far heavier sentences.

Mesud Trnjanin, a member of the Foundation for Return and Reconstruction group Prijedor 98, said, “I was imprisoned in Trnopolje [camp] and I escaped that convoy of death by the skin of my teeth. There were only four people in front of my brother and I when they stopped loading those buses.

“To a person such as myself, who experienced all those horrors, 15 to 20 years seems like a very lenient sentence.”

According to the pre-trial brief submitted by the prosecution, on August 21, 1992, Serb policemen rounded up thousands of Muslims and Croats from the village of Tukovi, as well as detainees from the Trnopolje camp, and forced them into a convoy of 30 buses.

Many of those from Trnopolje had previously been interned in the infamous Omarska and Keraterm camps as well. They were told they were going to be exchanged in the Bosnian government-held town of Travnik.

However, the convoy stopped on Mount Vlasic and Mrdja and several other police officers pulled some 200 men out of the buses before allowing the rest of the convoy to move on.

The 200 men Mrdja had selected were forced back onto two waiting buses and taken on short ride to Koricanske Stijene, a 300-metre rock face that ran at a steep angle into a ravine. Before forcing the men off the bus, Mrdja passed a plastic shopping bag around the bus and ordered the detainees to put their valuables in it.

Next, Mrdja ordered them to line up along the edge, facing the ravine. He then said something that all survivors remembered, "You are going to be exchanged. The living for the living, and the dead…" The policemen then opened fire.

One of the twelve survivors referred to in the prosecution’s pre-trial brief, his identity hidden by the codename S-8, said he was taken off the bus with a group of men and lined up along the edge of the cliff.

When the Serb soldiers opened fire, the man behind him pushed S-8 over the edge, where he smashed into a rock before falling to the bottom of the ravine to land among the dead and wounded.

When another survivor, S-10, got off the second bus, he saw a large puddle of blood and realised that his group was about to be executed. He jumped into the ravine of his own accord and landed in a treetop, where he remained for the next two days.

After climbing out of the tree, he wandered through the woods for 12 days before running into a group of Bosnian Croat soldiers who helped him to safety.

Other survivors were not so lucky. Seven who were either captured or who gave themselves up ended up in Banja Luka hospital, where they claimed they were beaten and humiliated by Serb patients and medical personnel alike.

Unlike other atrocities which took place at Prijedor, the Bosnian Serb authorities did launch an investigation into the massacre at Koricanske Stijene.

The day after it happened, Jevto Jankovic, an investigative judge from Banja Luka, tried to visit the site but was turned back by police who told him that it was not safe to proceed.

He tried again the next day in the company of a group of police officers, and succeeded in reaching the cliff. There, he saw a pile of corpses at the bottom of the ravine.

However, the investigation stalled because the Bosnian Serb authorities prevented Jankovic from interviewing the policemen who took part in the massacre. A videotape taken on the day of the visit subsequently disappeared, as did the bodies.

A date for sentencing in the Mrdja case is expected to be announced shortly.

Emir Suljagic is an IWPR reporter in The Hague. Amra Kebo is a commentator for the Sarajevo daily Oslobodjenje.