NOSOVIĆ: SEVERAL PEOPLE GIVEN LIGHT SENTENCES FOR SUFFERING OF SERBS IN SILOS CAMP

BANJA LUKA, JANUARY 27 /SRNA/ - Anđelko Nosović, president of the Alliance of Former Prison Camp Inmates of Republika Srpska, said that the suffering of Serb prisoners in the Silos camp in Tarčin near Sarajevo was indescribable, and that justice has still not reached the commanders and perpetrators of crimes against Serbs even 30 years after the closure of the notorious camp, as only a few people were sentenced to minor prison terms by the Court of BiH.

"The suffering experienced by Serb detainees in that camp was indescribable, as best evidenced by the fact that Serb women were raped, one child was even born in the camp, not in a maternity hospital," Nosović told SRNA. Nosović noted that the Silos camp was a death camp for Serbs, where more than 600 Serb civilians were imprisoned during the war, 24 of whom died as a result of beatings, torture, and starvation. He pointed out that the Silos camp was closed on January 27, 1996, two months after the initialing of the Dayton Peace Agreement and the deadline set for the closure of camps in BiH. Silos, a concentration camp for Serbs run by the so-called Army of BiH, was opened on May 11, 1992, in a facility that had stored wheat before the war, and it was closed three decades ago. In this camp, one of a total of 126 in wartime Sarajevo, the detainees were mostly civilians from the areas of Tarčin, Pazarić, and other surrounding settlements. The youngest detainee was fourteen-year-old Leo Kapetanović, while the oldest was eighty-five-year-old Vaso Šarenac, who died in the Silos, where the temperature inside was always 10 degrees lower than outside. The Alliance of Former Prison Camp Inmates of Republika Srpska will mark today in Tarčin, in the Sarajevo municipality of Hadžići, the 30th anniversary of the closure of the notorious Silos camp, where more than 600 Serb civilians endured horrific torture, physical and psychological abuse, beatings, and starvation, 24 of whom did not survive. In July 2021, the Court of BiH issued a second-instance verdict, sentencing six individuals to a total of 42 years in prison for horrific crimes committed in the Silos camp. Nezir Kazić, former commander of the 9th Mountain Brigade of the so-called Army of BiH, was sentenced to 10 years; former head of the Public Security Station in Hadžići, Fadil Čović, and former commander of the Silos camp in Tarčin /until August 1994/, Bećir Hujić, were each sentenced to eight years. Mirsad Šabić, commander of the Police Station in Pazarić, received a six-year sentence, and former Silos camp commander /from August 1994/, Halid Čović, and former camp guard, Nermin Kalember, were each sentenced to five years in prison. The six were convicted of illegal detention and inhumane treatment of Serb and Croat civilians held in the Silos camp, the Krupa barracks in Zovik, and the 9th of May Elementary School in Pazarić, as well as denying the detainees the right to a trial and sending civilians to forced labor.