The Zecovi case was not the only trial in which Ljubisa Cetic was convicted. He was also found guilty and sentenced to 15-and-a-half years in prison in 2010 for participating in the murders of around 200 men at the Koricani Cliffs on Mount Vlasic. In 2024, he was then sentenced to five years in prison for the crime in Zecovi, after which his total sentence was set at 20 years.
Zoric’s verdict in the Zecovi laid out how he and other troops from the Bosnian Serb Army’s 43rd Prijedor Brigade and various policemen went on July 25, 1992 to the house of a man called Hasan Bacic, knowing that only Bosniak women and children were inside – with the intention of killing them.
According to the verdict, one of the troops shouted: “Is there anyone in the house?”, to which a woman called Sehrija Bacic loudly replied from inside: “There are only women and children here.” The soldier shouted: “Everyone get out!”
When all the children and women were gathered in a group outside, Zoric and the person who ordered them to come out opened fire on them, the verdict said. Those who were not immediately killed by the gunshots were finished off with a pistol. All the children and women were killed, apart from one 15-year-old who, amid the chaos, managed to hide near the house and survived.
Among the civilians who were killed were Minka Bacic and her two children – Nermin and Nermina, aged 13 and six – the wife children of Fikret Bacic, who witnessed the massacre from nearby.
Bacic said that fact that Republika Srpska institutions financially support people convicted of war crimes does not surprise him.
“It is not news, it is an open secret, a ‘normal thing’ that the City Administration finances them,” he said.
Hanusic Becirovic said that councils granting money to war criminals makes any prospect of post-conflict reconciliation more difficult.
“A particularly problematic consequence of providing support to war criminals is how it inflicts pain on the families of innocently killed persons,” she added.
She noted that in the Zecovi case, surviving family members have returned to their former homes and are still searching for the remains of the women and children who were killed.
“The reason they cannot be found and buried with dignity in accordance with religious customs is, amongst other things, the unwillingness of those who were convicted, like Zoric, to share information about where they hid their bodies after they killed them,” she said.
Zoric was still on the run at the time of publication of this article. The Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina told BIRN in a written response that since requesting an Interpol ‘red notice’ for his arrest in January 2024, it has not received any new information about his whereabouts.