Željko Lelek

Željko Lelek (born 9 February 1962, Goražde, Bosnia and Herzegovina) was the first individual indicted for the mass rape crimes that were a feature of the expulsion of the Bosniak (Bosnian Muslim) population of the town of Višegrad, as part of the strategic campaign of ethnic cleansing carried out in the Drina Valley in the early days of the Bosnian War.^[1]

Biography

Željko Lelek took part in the widespread and systematic attacks on Bosniak civilians that were carried out in Višegrad between April and June 1992 by Bosnian Serb forces assisted by paramilitary groups from neighbouring Serbia. Some 4000 Muslims from Višegrad disappeared. Lelek, a policeman, was a member of the group led by the war criminals Milan Lukić and Mitar Vasiljević, both found guilty by the Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia at The Hague of some of the most horrific crimes committed during the Bosnian War.^[1]

In May 1992 Lelek was alleged to have decapitated two men and, with Milan Lukić, killed another three. At the beginning of June, in one of the most notorious incidents of the Bosnian war, Lelek together with Milan Joksimović and Vlatko Lukić brought two women of unknown identity to the Mehmed Paša Sokolović Bridge in Višegrad. One of the women was carrying a baby in her arms. The original indictment described in detail how these three individuals were murdered at the bridge: Pecikoza threw the baby in the air and Lelek caught it on a knife-blade, then ordered the mother to drink the blood of her child. They subsequently ordered two men they had brought to the scene to throw the bodies of the women and baby into the Drina, then killed them.^[1]

Lelek was also charged with the torture of civilian men in the Višegrad police station and with participating in the mass rape of women in the Vilina Vlas motel.^[1]

He was found guilty of taking part in persecution of the Bosniak (Bosnian Muslim) population, grave freedom deprivations, grave sexual assaults and forcible transfer of the population, in a campaign during which Bosnian Muslim men were abducted from their homes and places of work, detained and killed while women were taken to a camp where they were tortured and raped .^[2]

In April 1992 Lelek and Milan Lukic repeatedly raped a Muslim woman in the Vilina Vlas hotel, on the outskirts of Visegrad.^[2] In June 1992 Lelek forced a Muslim woman detained at Vilina Vlas to "provide him with sexual services".^[2]

In May and June 1992 Lelek and other Bosnian Serb soldiers and policemen abducted Muslim men from their homes near Višegrad and imprisoned them. They robbed and demolished the men's homes. In the course of one robbery and abduction Lelek forced a Muslim woman and her 80-year-old bed-ridden mother-in-law to take off their clothes to prove they had no money with them. ^[2]

Azra Osmanagić, a prosecution witness, one of a group of Višegrad women forcibly transferred to Bosnian government-held territory and whose husband was abducted and killed, observed that Lelek "was raised with us, went to school with us, lived by us and did such terrible things".^[2]

Osmanagić and others were angered by the Court's verdict^[2] after the Trial Panel dismissed the charges against Lelek of the two decapitations and three killings in May 1992 and also the charge of killing the two women and baby at Mehmed Paša Sokolović Bridge and the Appeal Panel confirmed Lelek's acquittal. The Appeal Panel found that an amended indictment that left out the relevant criminal acts referred to in the previous indictment signified that the Prosecution had dropped these charges and that this had been explicitly and verbally confirmed before the court.^[3][4][5]

Lelek remained on active service as a policeman in Višegrad until his arrest in November 2006.^[6] Members of Women Victims of War, an association of rape survivors from Višegrad led by Bakira Hasečić, had for years been calling for Lelek’s arrest and had filed complaints against another eight serving members of the town's police force.^[7] During Lelek's trial he insulted Hasečić, a witness against him, and threatened her several times.^[8] It is claimed that Lelek's continued employment and impunity are evidence of a corrupt administrative system that protects suspected war criminals up to the highest levels.

References