Centre for Civic Education (CCE) recalls that today marks 33 years since the crime in Štrpci, when members of the Army of Republika Srpska (VRS) abducted 20 passengers of non-Serb ethnicity from the Belgrade – Bar train, which had been forcibly stopped at the Štrpci railway station, and subsequently tortured and killed them.
After departing from the station in Užice, express train 671 was supposed to pass without stopping through a section of railway crossing the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina. However, armed individuals occupied the station and forced the station master to halt the train. Passengers of non-Serb ethnicity were identified and taken to a school in the village of Prelovo near Višegrad, where they were robbed and beaten, and later transferred to the village of Mušići, near Višegradska Banja, where they were killed. On that day, the following were murdered: Halil Zupčević (1944), Senad Đečević (1975), Esad Kapetanović (1954), Iljaz Ličina (1947), Fehim Bakija (1950), Rifat Husović (1958), Ismet Babačić (1963), Šećo Softić (1945), Adem Alomerović (1935), Rasim Ćorić (1953), Fikret Memović (1939), Fevzija Zeković (1939), Džafer Topuzović (1938), Muhedin Hanić (1966), Safet Preljević (1971), Nijazim Kajević (1963), Zvjezdan Zuličić (1960), Jusuf Rastoder (1938), Tomo Buzov (1940), and one unidentified person. The oldest victim was 59 and the youngest 17 years old. Although the crime was committed outside the territory of Montenegro and by individuals who were not its citizens, eight of the abducted passengers were from Montenegro (Bijelo Polje, Podgorica, Berane, and Bar), which obliges the competent institutions of Montenegro to actively contribute to the prosecution of perpetrators and those who ordered the crime, as well as to the search for the mortal remains of the victims.
Criminal proceedings regarding the Štrpci crime were conducted in three countries – Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Serbia. Ten individuals have been finally convicted, while three persons were sentenced before the Higher Court in Belgrade in retrial proceedings to a total of 25 years of imprisonment, although the verdict has not yet become final. In Montenegro, in 2003, Nebojša Ranisavljević was finally convicted and sentenced to 15 years of imprisonment for a war crime against the civilian population. The crime was commanded by Milan Lukić, leader of the paramilitary unit “Avengers”, who was sentenced to life imprisonment by the Hague Tribunal for a series of crimes committed in Višegrad during the war. Since 2019, the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina has charged him in relation to the Štrpci crime. At the end of 2014, in a joint operation by the police of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia, 15 individuals were arrested. In 2015, trial proceedings commenced before the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina against 10 individuals – Mićo Jovičić, Obrad and Novak Poluga, Petko Inđić, Radojica Ristić, Dragan Šekarić, Oliver Krsmanović, Miodrag Mitrašinović, Boban Inđić and Vuk Ratković. Jovičić pleaded guilty, while proceedings against Ratković were discontinued in 2021 due to his death. They were finally sentenced to prison terms ranging from 5 to 15 years. In Serbia, the War Crimes Prosecutor’s Office filed an indictment on 10 May 2018 against five individuals for the Štrpci crime – Gojko Lukić, Duško Vasiljević, Ljubiša Vasiljević, Dragana Đekić and Jovan Lipovac. Three former members of the VRS – Gojko Lukić and Duško Vasiljević were sentenced to 10 years each for war crimes against the civilian population, Dragana Đekić to five years of imprisonment, while two of the five accused have in the meantime passed away. The fact that, according to the indictments, an organised armed group of 25 to 30 members of the VRS participated in the crime indicates that full justice has still not been achieved.
To date, the mortal remains of only four victims – Halil Zupčević, Rasim Ćorić, Jusuf Rastoder and Iljaz Ličina – have been found on the shores of Lake Perućac, while the search for the others continues more than three decades later.
A memorial to the victims was erected in 2016 in Bijelo Polje, following years of efforts by families and dedicated individuals, while the absence of memorialisation at the state level remains a significant institutional failure.
The Štrpci crime is not part of Montenegro’s formal education system, leaving space for oblivion, manipulation and revisionism. A 2024 CCE survey on young people’s knowledge of the facts shows that 42.2% of young people do not know or refuse to answer whether war crimes were committed on the territory of Montenegro, while among those who answered affirmatively, only 45.6% had heard of the Štrpci crime. CCE calls on educational institutions to include topics related to the war events of the 1990s in curricula at all levels of education, in order to contribute to a culture of peace and knowledge of court-established facts.
The decision of the Government of Montenegro to pay financial compensation to the families of civilian victims, including the families of the victims of the Štrpci abduction, represents a step towards acknowledging state responsibility, but it cannot replace the full truth, justice, and systemic approach to dealing with the past. Namely, following decades of demands by victims’ families, the public, and civil society organisations, pursuant to the Government’s 2025 decision, 16 families of civilian victims will receive EUR 100,000 each, in two phases during 2025 and 2026. CCE notes that material compensation, although important, does not relieve the state of its obligation to ensure effective investigations, continuous search for the missing, prosecution of all those responsible, and memorialisation of war crimes.
CCE also recalls that in 2025, the United Nations Committee on Enforced Disappearances called on Montenegro to amend its Criminal Code and define enforced disappearance as a separate criminal offence with a long statute of limitations. Although the Guidelines for the Search for Missing Persons and the Strategy for the Investigation of War Crimes for the period 2024–2027 have been adopted, the effectiveness of these documents depends solely on their consistent implementation in practice.
In March 2025, CCE published the publication Dealing with the Past in Montenegro: The “Štrpci” Case, which includes extensive court documentation and provides material for an analytical review of this case.
In memory of the victims of the Štrpci abduction, flowers will be laid today at 10:00 at the memorial site in Pobrežje in Podgorica and at 13:00 in Bijelo Polje. CCE invites all those who are able to attend these commemorations.
Maja Marinović, Programme Associate