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Drazen Erdemovic: Portrait of a Confessed War Criminal 
TUZLA, Bosnia, June 4 (Berserkistan) While the young Bosnian Croat, Drazen Erdemovic, broke down and wept in the Hague, confessing to have taken part in a massacre of Muslim men after the fall of Srebrenica, his family and fiends in Dragunje, a village near Tuzla described him as a "good man and friend."
"He was good to me. He was good to everyone and everybody loved him," said Viktoria Erdemovic, his 15 year-old sister, tears coursing down her cheeks, "He is my brother and I love him, he was good to me. My parents feel the same as any parents feel about their child. He is their child, no matter what he is." Erdemovic's family had not seen him for three years after he defected from the Bosnian Army after falling in love with a Serbian girl from the Tuzla suburb of Vukinje. He later married and fathered a child with her, but the price of this love was serving in the Bosnian Serb Army and thus began the turns in his life that led him to a dock in the Hague.
His friends and schoolmates from Dragunje remembered a nice, if a bit aggressive man, before the war. "He was a great pal. He volunteered for the Bosnian Territorial Defense at the beginning of the war along with my brother." Said Mevlida Osmancevic, 22, a friend from a nearby village. "He was a great soldier. He never offended anyone and was always eager to have fun. He left because he fell in love with the Serb girl from Vukinje." His schoolmate, Almir Bosnjakovic also remembered Erdemovic. "He was a good guy, a bit high strung. He liked to get into fights but he was a good friend." His unit, and Erdemovic in particular, have been implicated and indicted for crimes against humanity. Court evidence has placed them near Zvornik after the fall of the U.N. "safe haven" of Srebrenica. The indictment says that after the fall of the town, Erdemovic and his unit took part in the summary execution of hundreds of Muslim prisoners. A former professor at the school, Ahmed Sehic, remembered a well mannered young man, tall and "cute as a doll" but not a very good student. "I think he got involved in all this under someone's influence. He may have been forced to do it. I think he did not do it of his own will." His mother Ana, was too distressed to speak at length to the press, but said, "Everyone should live as he deserved. I haven't seen him for three years and I don't know anything about him. All I know is what I hear on TV or radio and it saddens me every time." The village of Dragunje was mostly Muslim and Croat before the war and has seen a large influx of refugees from Srebrenica since last summer. Many of them live in the school house that he attended as a boy. They were less conciliatory in their views but said that his family could go on living in the village. "I have heard of this boy who committed crimes. He should be tried as anybody else who is guilty. His family lives here, nobody is touching them." remarked Sukrija Ibrahimovic, 37, with a dismissive wave of his hand. |
In tears on the stand, he told the court, "Your honor, I had to do this. If I had refused, I would have been killed along with the victims.", referring to a massacre of Muslim prisoners near Zvornik after the fall of Srebrenica in July of 1995. He is the first of seven men to have taken the stand in the Hague to have pleaded guilty.
Erdemovic: Fall guy or cold-blooded killer?
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Berserkistan, May 31 · Erdemovic Pleads Guilty to War Crimes
Berserkistan, May 29 · Tribunal Indicts Drazen Erdemovic
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