The Washington Post
January 12, 1993
SARAJEVO – Three days after the assassination of Bosnia-Herzegovina’s deputy premier by a Serb gunman, U.N. commanders are refusing to let Bosnian government investigators question the troops who were escorting the politician at the time of the killing.
The government has made daily requests to interview the soldiers but has been rebuffed by U.N. generals, and investigators have accused the U.N. command here of trying to cover up security lapses and of misleading them about the incident. “If {the U.N. force} really wants to inform the world about what happened, there is no reason to refuse our request,” said Sarajevo Chief Prosecutor Ivica Stenic, who is leading the investigation.
At the same time, Interior Minister Jusuf Pusina announced that Bosnia’s Slavic Muslim-led government has asked the United Nations to replace French Maj. Gen. Philippe Morillon, chief of U.N. forces in the republic, and Egyptian Maj. Gen. Hussein Abdel-Razek, the U.N. commander in Sarajevo. Pusina said they are “persona non grata,” but he did not say if his government would try to expel them.
Morillon has acknowleged that his troops committed security errors in their handling of the escort, but he has not specified who made the errors, what the errors were or why they were made.
The assassination occurred Friday, after Deputy Premier Hakija Turajlic, traveling in a U.N. armored personnel carrier from Sarajevo airport into the city, was stopped at a roadblock erected by Serb nationalist militiamen. After a standoff of more than two hours, U.N. officials said, one of the Serbs pushed aside a French colonel and fired at least seven shots at Turajlic through the open back doors of the armored vehicle.
U.N. officials say they have not yet made a decision on whether to permit government investigators to interview members of the U.N. escort detail. They say they want to complete their own investigation first and that Bosnian officials may then be allowed to interview the men. “It is not a matter of dragging our heels,” said U.N. spokesman Barry Frewer. “We are conducting an expeditious investigation. We want to determine all the facts.”
The government, which has become openly hostile toward the United Nations presence here in recent months, contends that it has a right to interview the soldiers immediately because the investigation could have profound ramifications on the status of Bosnia’s three-sided factional war. So far, government investigators say the U.N. command has given them incomplete written statements from three of perhaps five soldiers who were at the roadblock. “These statements are ridiculous,” said Darko Ivic, liaison officer for Bosnian government militia forces with the U.N. command.
In an interview, Interior Minister Pusina charged that the U.N. command is trying to protect whichever soldier or soldiers breached security guidelines by allowing the locked back doors of the armored vechicle to be opened, leaving Turajlic exposed to attack. Pusina said U.N. officials have refused to hand over key evidence from the scene, including the uniform of the French colonel who was standing next to the Serb gunman when the shots were fired. Bosnian investigators say they are skeptical of the French colonel’s account of the killing and want to examine his uniform for gunpowder residue.
Pusina added that his government may file criminal charges at the International Court of Justice against any U.N. soldier responsible for opening the doors. “Further investigation will determine whether they should be treated only as mediators or as accomplices to the crime,” he said.
Most of all, Bosnian officials want to interview the senior U.N. officer at the assassination scene, Col. Patrice Sartre. At a news conference Saturday, Sartre said the doors of the armored vehicle were open when he arrived at the roadblock shortly before the shooting and that he did not know who had opened them.
But Sartre’s account contradicts statements by British army Capt. Peter Jones, who also arrived at the roadblock before the shooting and who said that the doors were opened after Sartre came on the scene. Jones said in an interview that he and other British troops with him were ordered by Sartre to leave the roadblock before the shooting, but “when I was there, I made sure the back door was never open.”
Jones said he was in command of two British armored personnel carriers and an armored Land Rover that rolled up to the roadblock at about 4:30 p.m., 15 minutes after the French vehicle containing Turajlic was stopped there. Jones said that by the time Sartre arrived — about 45 minutes later — the situation was tense but calm.
Jones said he was “extremely surprised” when Sartre ordered him to leave. “Col. Sartre said, ‘Move out your vehicles.’ I said, ‘No, let’s stay here. We have a calming influence on the ground.’ Then he said, ‘No, it’s a French problem.’ He repeated it two or three times. He said, ‘You have to go.’ “
The British contingent departed, Jones said, leaving Sartre and four or five French soldiers confronting about 40 armed Serbs, who had two armored vehicles of their own.
Sartre told reporters Saturday that he sent the British troops away and did not call for reinforcements from his own French battalion — stationed just 400 yards away — because he believed that a show of force could inflame the Serbs. Instead, he said, he chose to follow the normal U.N. practice of trying to negotiate with the Serbs.
Sartre said also that he had stood in front of the open armored doors with his pistol drawn to keep the Serbs away from Turajlic. But, Sartre said, one of the militiamen suddenly pushed him aside and fired the fatal shots over his shoulder.
