THE ROLE OF "FAVORITE MUJAHEDIN BEST MAN" ŠEMSUDIN MEHMEDOVIĆ IN WAR CRIMES AGAINST SERBS

SARAJEVO, APRIL 7 /SRNA/ - In September 1992, the mujahedin brought four severed heads of Serb soldiers captured in the fighting around the Crni Vrh hill, between the municipalities of Tešanj and Tešanj, to the local police station, as a "gift" Šemsudin Mehmedović, the wartime chief of the Muslim police in Tešanj, and today an SDA member of parliament in the House of Representatives of the Parliamentary Assembly of BiH.

"In the shocking testimony of a protected witness, the transcript of which was leaked to the public, it is claimed that Mehmedović gave the mujahideen who brought him severed Serbian heads a nickel-plated pistol in return and promised to praise him to the leader of the infamous "El Mujahid" detachment, Abdel Kader Mokhtari, known as Abu Mali, with whom the chief of the Tešanj police worked closely during the war," counter-terrorism expert Dževad Galijašević told SRNA.

In the same testimony, Mehmedović is also heavily accused of war crimes, which include the murders, torture and mistreatment of captured Serb civilians from Tešanj and the surrounding area, who were held in a detention camp within the police station in that town.

Galijašević said that, according to witness, the severed Serb heads were brought from the base in the village of Jablanica by a mujahid named Zeid /Zeid is the mujahid name of Željko Dukmenić/ who, accompanied by police officers Enver and Amir Beša, and Besim Sejdić, drove to the police station in Tešnja in an off-road vehicle.

"The witness said that Zeid took a plastic bag and brought it into the police building, throwing it on the desk of the police officer on duty, Hakija Hadžan, who hastily asked: `What did you bring, brothers?` Zeid replied: `We did what the chief asked for, we did. We brought, brother, four Vlach heads as a gift for him,`" Galijašević stated, adding that, according to the witness's testimony, there was general hugging and kissing between the mujahedin and the police officers at the police station.

The witness states that Mehmedović came to the station at the call of the police officer on duty, who used the code "Hum 101" via Motorola and happily informed him that "the brothers from Jablanica brought a `hedija` /gift/ and that he was looking for a prize for bringing the good news”.

"Not long after that, Šemso /Mehmedović/ arrived, accompanied by Emir Akhmetović. Then Zeid took a bag and threw the heads into the hallway. The heads were bloody, with a horrible expression on their faces. At the place where they had been cut off, it was clear that they had been torn off with something blunt, and holes were visible on the top of the head, most likely from blows with a blunt object. One head had no ears and nose, and one had no eyes," the witness stated in his statement.

According to further statements by witnesses, Mehmedović spat in the direction of the severed heads and said that it was a pity that only four were cut off.

"If only you had cut off a thousand others," said Mehmedović, currently a member of the House of Representatives of the Parliamentary Assembly of BiH, and ordered police officers Emir Ahmetović, Smail Smailbegović, and Hakija Hadžan to collect the severed heads and bury them under the hospital building in Tešanj.

Mehmedović then awarded Mujahideen Zeid with a nickel-plated revolver that he brought from the office, saying that the gun was found with a murdered Serb.

"He will probably never need it again, and here you have it. Truth be told, you will only be able to kill six Vlachs with it," said Mehmedović, adding that he would personally praise Zeid to the main emir of the detachment when he arrives in Jablanica.

Those first ritual beheadings of four innocent Serbs and the crimes committed by Islamic militants in the area of the municipality of Tešanj fully reflect the fanatical religious perversion and behavior of jihadists in war, and Šemsudin Mehmedović is suspected of command and personal responsibility for them.

The protected witness accused Mehmedović of the murders and abuse of Serb civilians detained in the garages of the police station in Tešanj, and described in detail the methods of torture, from taking inmates to dig trenches on the front lines to pouring water from hoses in the middle of winter in the yard of the police station, on Mehmedović's orders.

He also described the case of the murder of an old man named Avrak from a village near Tešanj, who was arrested for distilling rakija, which is not in accordance with Sharia law.

"Mehmedović ordered the special forces to beat the old man, and at one point the old man fell down the stairs from the blows. When it was determined that he was dead, Mehmedović ordered him to be transferred to the hospital, where it was determined that he had succumbed to injuries from falling down the stairs, after allegedly tripping himself," the witness said.

In 2005, the Ministry of Interior of the Republika Srpska filed a report against Šemsudin Mehmedović on the commission of a criminal act of war crimes against humanity and against the civilian population in the municipality of Tešanj. The criminal complaint was received the same year at the District Prosecutor's Office in Doboj, where certain investigative actions were carried out based on this complaint, but at the order of the unconstitutional Court of BiH, the case was transferred to the Prosecutor's Office of BiH in 2006.

Of course, despite the testimony of a protected witness and numerous other evidence, the investigation against Mehmedović, better known as the favorite "mujahideen best man" given that during the civil war in BiH he was a witness at numerous weddings of foreign jihadists and Muslim and distributed citizenship to them, was suspended in 2018.

After the investigation was launched, Mehmedović stated that, as he says, he knows his past, and that those who think he has committed dishonorable acts should prove it.

Galijašević pointed out that "thanks to the SDA personnel and their then-cooperation with the SDS, senior inspectors Mario Kapetanović and Dženana Omerhodžić were suspended from SIPA because they led the operation codenamed `Ozren,` established responsibility, and arrested Šemsudin Mehmedović for the first ritual slaughters in BiH, near Tešanj, on September 21, 1992".

In this, as in many other cases involving crimes against Serbs, the actions of the unconstitutional Prosecutor's Office of BiH were extremely politically motivated and biased, which is visible especially through the refusal to fulfill legal obligations and create conditions for conducting a fair investigation and the process of proving the committed criminal acts. /to be continued/