TOMIĆ: EVERYONE WHO WATCHED BRUTAL MURDER OF THE BOY SLOBODAN DESERVED PRISON SENTENCE

ZVORNIK, JULY 27 /SRNA/ - Advisor to the Serb member of the BiH Presidency, Boško Tomić, said today in Drinjača near Zvornik that the villain Elfeta Veseli is not solely to blame for the murder of the innocent boy Slobodan Stojanović - but also all those who allowed and watched it.

"Did they ever think about their own children? To allow such torture and abuse to be inflicted on Slobodan... They should be sentenced so they never see the light of day," Tomić told reporters at the commemoration of the suffering of this innocent boy. Tomić noted that he was surprised by such a lenient sentence of 13 years in prison handed down to Veseli for such a monstrous act. Minister without Portfolio in the Government of Serbia, Nenad Popović, pointed out that today in Drinjača we remember all the victims, innocently suffering Serbs in this area, who gave their lives for freedom. He stated that it is our obligation never to forget these new martyrs because their deeds are woven into our historical memory, and that it is our obligation not to allow the rewriting of history so that victims are shown as executioners, and executioners as victims. State Secretary in the Serbian Ministry of Labor, Employment, Veteran and Social Affairs Nikola Vukelić noted that this is an especially tragic event because an innocent child perished. "Slobodan, as his name suggests /Slobodan meaning `free`/, did not live to see freedom, but died in Muslim captivity; however, every man and every child in Republika Srpska, which is the guarantor of the survival of the Serbian people, is free," Vukelić said. State Secretary in the Serbian Ministry of Family Welfare and Demography Đorđe Dabić said that today in Drinjača they are paying their respects to Slobodan, who is a symbol of Serbian suffering in the war in BiH, and emphasized that precisely those who want to impose the stigma of a genocidal nation on the Serbs should come here and see what genocide was. According to him, the Serbian people survived genocide twice in the last century, so today they are in Drinjača to remind and tell the whole world who was the victim and who was the executioner. "Serbia stands with Republika Srpska and will never again allow ethnic cleansing and genocide against our people on both sides of the Drina," Dabić stressed. The Mayor of Zvornik Bojan Ivanović said that the suffering of Slobodan Stojanović is a warning that something like this must never happen to anyone again, to any child, regardless of religion or nationality. "It is our obligation to preserve peace, freedom, and an economically strong Republika Srpska," Ivanović said. The Holy Hierarchical Liturgy in the Church of the Holy Deacon Avakum was officiated by His Eminence Metropolitan Fotije, concelebrated by the clergy, after which the ceremonial bread was broken in the name of the holy great martyr Slobodan Stojanović. Twelve-year-old Slobodan Stojanović was killed in July 1992 in the settlement of Kamenica near Zvornik by Elfeta Veseli, a member of the Sabotage Platoon of the Command of Joint Units of Liplje and Kamenica of the so-called Army of BiH. Slobodan Stojanović was killed when, after fleeing with his parents, he returned to his village of Kamenica to untie his dog that had been left tied up in the yard. Slobodan never returned. His body was found in a pit in the hamlet of Bajrići in Novo Selo near Zvornik, and he was identified by DNA analysis, after which he was buried in the cemetery in Drinjača. According to the findings of pathologist Zoran Stanković, the child was brutally murdered, his stomach was cut in the shape of a cross, and he had visible head injuries. For the brutal murder of the boy Slobodan Stojanović, committed in 1992, Elfeta Veseli was sentenced to ten years in prison in the first-instance proceedings, only for the Appellate Division of the Court of BiH to increase the sentence to 13 years in a second-instance verdict handed down in December 2019. According to data from the Republic Centre for Research of War, War Crimes and Search for Missing Persons, upon the outbreak of the civil war, Elfeta Veseli joined Naser Orić's unit, participating in sabotage actions of Muslim forces in Podrinje. After the war, she went to Switzerland where she spent 20 years evading justice.