Centre for Civic Education (CCE) reminds that tomorrow – 27 February – will be 32 years since the abduction and murder of passengers from the train that travelling on the Belgrade – Bar railway. Express train 671, traveling from Belgrade, was forcibly stopped at the station in Štrpci, where 20 passengers of non-Serb nationality were taken off the train and later executed. The oldest victim of this crime was 59 years old, while the youngest was just 16. To this day, the remains of only four persons have been found.
As established in separate court proceedings, this train was under the escort of two police officers who were given a written order to allow the Army of Republika Srpska to check passengers’ identities and remove military conscripts of Republika Srpska, which was then misused. The train dispatcher was told that there were deserters and arms smugglers on board, and under the threat of armed soldiers, he signaled for the train to stop at that station.
Once the train was stopped, members of the Intervention Unit of the Višegrad Brigade of the Army of Republika Srpska carried out identity checks and removed the following individuals, who were later executed: Esad Kapetanović, Iljaz Ličina, Fehim Bakija, Šećo Softić, Rafet Husović from Bijelo Polje, Halil Zupčević from Trebinje, Senad Đečevićfrom Bar, Jusuf Rastoder from Berane, Ismet Babačić from Podgorica, Tomo Buzov from Belgrade, Adem Alomerović, Muhedin Hanić, Safet Preljević, Džafer Topuzović from Brodarevo, Rasim Ćorić, Fikret Memović, Fevzija Zeković, Nijazim Kajević from Prijepolje, and Zvjezdan Zuličić from Sarajevo, along with an unidentified person of African origin.
After being taken from the train, the victims were transported to the gym hall of a school in the village of Prelovo near Višegrad, where all their personal belongings, money, and jewelry were confiscated. They were then beaten, tied with wire, and loaded onto a truck, which transported them to a burned-down house in the village of Mušići, in the same municipality. In groups, they were taken to the garage of that house, where they were executed using automatic weapons.
In the testimony of one of the convicted perpetrators, Nebojša Ranisavljević, before the investigative judge of the High Court in Bijelo Polje, he stated: “At one moment, one person attempted to escape, so I fired a burst of bullets at him. This person began to wail, saying, ‘Oh, my mother.’ After this, Lukić came out of the garage, and when he was informed of what had happened, he approached and slit the throat of this individual with a bayonet, who was still showing signs of life.” He further explained that another individual had also tried to escape but was killed in the same manner by another uniformed man. The murdered passengers were then thrown into the nearby Drina River.
Criminal proceedings for these crimes were conducted in three countries – Montenegro, Serbia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina. More than ten members of the group that carried out the abduction were sentenced to prison terms ranging from 10 to 15 years. Among them was Nebojša Ranisavljević, who was the first to be convicted in 2002 by the High Court in Bijelo Polje. However, Milan Lukić was never tried for the Štrpci abduction, despite being sentenced to life imprisonment by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) for other crimes committed in Višegrad.
At the beginning of March, CCE will publish a comprehensive report that includes extensive court documentation from the case against Nebojša Ranisavljević, who was legally convicted for this crime.
Damir Suljević, Human Rights Programme Coordinator