GALIJAŠEVIĆ: MURDER OF SERB RETURNEE RESULT OF RELIGIOUS HATRED

BIJELJINA, JUNE 29 /SRNA/ - The murder of the Serbian returnee on Vidovdan on Mount Ozren is a result of religious hatred and reflects the current situation and anti-Serb political climate in the Federation of BiH, said counter-terrorism expert Dževad Galijašević.

"In the case of the elderly woman's murder, the perpetrators are followers and soldiers of General Sakib Mahmuljin, who, by killing the defenseless, are merely completing the project of ethnic cleansing and persecution of the Serb people from the Federation of BiH. Therefore, this politically motivated murder stems from deep religious and ethnic hatred," Galijašević told SRNA. Galijašević added that this is a way to nullify the already minimal return of Serbs to the part of Ozren controlled by the Muslim Sarajevo. “This kind of murder will effectively force dozens of families who have returned to leave again. The Serbs who have lived on Mount Ozren since time immemorial were expelled by Islamic radicals and terrorists from the ‘El Mujahedin’ unit under the command of Mahmuljin,” Galijašević told SRNA. Galijašević noted that it was Mahmuljin’s terrorists who burned down 66 settlements on Mount Ozren, destroyed and burned down more than 5,700 houses, and demolished 12 churches along with one medieval monastery. He added that the most prominent commanders of the so-called Army of BiH, Generals Rasim Delić and Enver Hadžihasanović, as well as Colonel Amir Kubura, were convicted by the ICTY in The Hague for these crimes. He recalled that Mahmuljin’s quasi-state structures, under the control of Sarajevo’s political establishment, protected him from serving an eight-year prison sentence to which he was convicted. After the sentence was pronounced, he escaped, and Galijašević noted that today no one is even looking for him. “Despite the verdict, Mahmuljin remains free, and no one is searching for him, which speaks volumes about the credibility of the Court of BiH and the significance of its rulings,” Galijašević said. Serb returnee Jela Pejić was murdered last night in the Rovine settlement near Lukavac. The killing of this elderly woman is one in a series of crimes against Serb returnees in Lukavac.