BiH: Shed light on those killings!
On 26 September 2012 TRIAL submitted an individual communication to the United Nations Human Rights Committtee regarding the alleged arbitrary killing and the subsequent removal and concealment of the remains of Mrs. Anda Lale and Mrs. Staka Popovic that occurred in August 1992 in the municipality of Trnovo in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
During the devastating internal conflict that ravaged Bosnia-Herzegovina between 1992 and 1995 around 35,000 people went missing. Despite limited progress, thousands of families remain without information about what happened to their beloved relatives. Among these are the families of Anđa Lale and Staka Popović.
Following the Bosnian military attack against the town of Trnovo in mid-July 1992, Anđa Lale and Staka Popović fled the town and found refuge in an empty cottage in a nearby village. A few days later they were last seen in the house as Bosnian soldiers approached and set the house on fire shortly afterwards. Disquieting pieces of information came up in the following months confirming that the people who were in the cottage were executed.
More than twenty years after the events, and despite the unwavering efforts of their families, no investigation has been launched to establish the fate and whereabouts of Anđa Lale and Staka Popović nor to identify those responsible for their arbitrary killing and the subsequent removal and concealment of their remains.
TRIAL (Swiss Association against Impunity) submits their cases to the United Nations Human Rights Committee asking the Committee to request the Government of Bosnia-Herzegovina to ensure a prompt investigation to establish the fate and whereabouts of Anđa Lale and Staka Popović and to locate, exhume, identify their mortal remains and to return them to their families, bring the perpetrators to justice and provide their families with adequate compensation and measures of reparation.
TRIAL defends more that 300 direct and indirect victims in more that 115 cases in front of the European Court of Human Rights and the Human Rights Committee, acting on behalf of 220 victims in Bosnia and Herzegovina, in the course of 78 cases.
