IVANKA RANKIĆ: THEY ROASTED MY NENAD ALIVE - THE NAMES OF THE CRIMINALS ARE KNOWN, BUT THE JUDICIARY REMAINS SILENT

SREBRENICA, JULY 1 /SRNA/ - In a harrowing testimony, Ivanka Rankić from Srebrenica recounts how Muslim soldiers in Potočari roasted her son Nenad alive in May 1992, and that no one has been held accountable for this horrific crime, even though the names of the perpetrators are known, and there are photographs and a video recording of the gruesome torture.

"Still, no one has been held responsible for that crime. The Hague and the BiH judiciary are not interested in Serbian victims and crimes against Serbs, because they were formed and paid to persecute and judge only Serbs," the Serbian mother told SRNA, showing the photographs.

The chilling photographs show the burned body parts of her son Nenad, who was only 24 years old when he was captured.

"They tied him to a plum tree and burned him with a gas torch. There is also a video cassette showing Kemal Mehmedović from the nearby village of Pale, a certain Avdo who lives on Avdagina njiva near Bratunac, and Hasan Memeti from Potočari, who has died," recounts Ivanka.

She points out that everything is known about this crime, but that the judiciary is taking no action.

"That Kemal has been living in America under a false name for years, and he was discovered some time ago, but still nothing has been done. He hasn't been put on trial. If it were a Serb, he would have been deported and convicted long ago," states Ivanka.

The name of Kemal Mehmedović is also mentioned in connection with the beheading of Anđelko Mlađenović from Ježestica near Bratunac, which SRNA previously reported on.

He is mentioned as the perpetrator of that crime, who took the head to Srebrenica, tied it to a vehicle, and dragged it through the streets, showing children what, as he said, a "Chetnik head" looked like. For this "heroism," he was rewarded by his commander, Naser Orić.

According to Ivanka's words, the gruesome recording shows who is burning her son and how.

"The names are known. While they are torturing my Nenad, Naser Orić is dancing the kolo and saying, `torture the Chetnik`. Everything was recorded," emphasizes Ivanka.


PHOTOGRAPHS AND VIDEO RECORDING SHOW TORTURE

She says she didn't know that photographs and a cassette with recordings of her Nenad's torture existed, and even now, she doesn't know how she survived after watching it all.

"My husband Boro became seriously ill, and a few days before his death, he told me about it. He paid a lot for those pictures and the cassette to a certain Dragana, a Serb woman who worked for some British newspaper and later died somewhere. My husband asked me not to touch it while he was alive. He died a few days later, on February 20, 2002," recalls Ivanka.


THE COFFIN WAS NEVER OPENED

According to Ivanka's testimony, the criminals brought Nenad's burned skeleton on a cart to the "Yellow Bridge," which separated Srebrenica and Bratunac, and kept it under machine-gun fire, sending a message for him to be picked up.

"Our army somehow retrieved him and transported him to the Bratunac Health Center. There, they laid him in a coffin which they nailed shut and did not allow to be opened. He was buried that way on May 26, 1992, in the Bratunac cemetery," says this tearful mother with misty eyes and a deep sigh.

She points out that she has been giving statements to both domestic and foreign journalists for years, that some were published, and some were not, because they do not suit someone's agenda.

She wrote letters to the prosecutors' offices in Bijeljina and Tuzla, but no one ever came to hear her out, to launch an investigation, and issue an indictment because, as she points out, it doesn't suit someone's agenda.

She says she believes and hopes only in God's justice to reach the criminals and those who protect them.

"There is no other justice for crimes against Serbs," emphasizes this elderly woman, noting that no one was held accountable for the sniper murder of her nephew Ratko Cvjetinović, who was killed as a 21-year-old in front of his house in Obadi, as well as for her brother Miladin, whose head was smashed with hammers by villains, and for her cousin Rajko Marinković, killed while tending sheep in Podravanje.

Despite four severe tragedies, this brave woman wore a uniform until the end of the war and remained to carry out the tasks of the Army of Republika Srpska.

Alongside all the pain and sorrow, she says it was especially difficult for her when her daughter-in-law, the wife of the murdered Nenad, remarried a few months after his death and left behind two children, aged three years and five months—Branka and Danka.

"We had problems. In the end, they stayed with me, finished university, got married, and have their own families. They come and visit me," she says with melancholy.


ANOMALIES OF BiH JUDICIARY

Ivanka points to the illogicality, absurdity, and one-sidedness of the work of the BiH judiciary.

"Instead of putting the killers of my son Nenad on trial, SIPA members came looking for my other son, who has been in Germany since the beginning of the war, working and living there. When he visited, he answered their summons and they interrogated him for three hours. I don't know why. Yet they never came to hear me tell them who killed my child and how, or who is now honking and provoking under my window with Muslim war flags," Ivanka says, waving her hand dismissively, thus showing that she expects nothing more from the BiH judiciary and that she prays to God, believing only in God's justice that arrives sooner or later.