Friday, December 28, 2018

Pravda za Davida: How a murder grew into a political movement

This story starts some time in March 2018, when a 21-year-old young man named David Dragičević was found dead in Banja Luka (BL), Republika Srpska (RS), Bosnia-Herzegovina. The boy disappeared on 18 March and his body was found in the city's river Crkvena 6 days later. Police investigation did not find any tracks of foul play, though the autopsy revealed that there was at least physical altercation before the young man's death, adding that the body had been under water for at least a week. Yet - despite the autopsy report - the BL police decided to close the case adding that the cause of death was drowning.

David Dragičević (right) with his father Davor (photo: Facebook/Pravda za Davida)


As the public found it all suspicious and there was a huge pressure on the police, a pathologist from Belgrade, Serbia was called. Upon the new report the body was in the water for 2-4 days the maximum and the boy probably lived at least 2 more days after his disappearance. Despite the new report the police didn't order new investigation and this fact as well as the growing tension around the case led to protests in BL.

Davor Dragičević at the photo of his son David at a demonstration in July 2018. (photo: Anadolu/BIRN)


In the meantime Dragan Lukač, interior minister of RS claimed that the police did what they could, they didn't hide anything. Davor Dragičević said his son was killed and the police were trying to conceal evidences. As a reply minister Lukač filed a lawsuit against Dragičević for defamation.

The people of BL protested ahead. Every single day at 18:00 they gathered at Krajina square which they named "Trg Davida" (David's square) and demonstrated. They had their own hashtag #PravdaZaDavida, meanwhile more and more politicians tried to have their say about the case. In August 2018 opposition politicians requested an extra parliamentary session charging the prosecutor's office with intentional delaying of the investigation. A committee of MP's were made (with the majority of opposition politicians) and they informed that the Prosecutor's Office had made numerous failures during the information of the public and this fact even more undermines the continuously weakening confidence in the public institutions. The ruling coalition - after heavy debates - dismissed the report made by the committee saying it was "overly politicized".

Later that month a journalist of Bijeljina-based BN TV, Vladimir Kovačević was attacked at daylight on the street. Kovačević is known to cover the case of David Dragičević. Just before the attack he sent material to the TV station, and as he was about to return to his workplace, two youngsters attacked and beat him.



"20 minutes ago, as I was returning to work, two boys surrounded me and hit me with rods until I collapsed" Kovačević wrote on Twitter. The attackers were never found.

Time passed. The demonstrators on David's square were joined by the parents of Dženan Memić and Danijela Aranđelović, two young people whose deaths have not been resolved and whose parents also do not want to believe the police's version.

Report of BN TV, a Bijeljina-based TV-channel about the 238th day of the demonstration on 18 November, 2018.




Then in December 2018 something broke in the system. Those in power probably got fed up with the continuous demonstration for almost 300 days and Davor Dragičević was arrested together with David's mother Suzana on 25 December, 2018.

The moment when David's mother Suzana is carried away by policemen. The mother is still holding her son's photo.
Serbian journalist Žarko Bogosavljević's comment: "This photo will be remembered and will appear in the history books as the end of Milorad Dodik"



The official justification of their arrest was that Dragičević was reported four days before for demonstrating in front of the Banja Luka parliament, just when the new government was elected. He did not respond to the accusation and the police arrested him. Suzana Radanović, David's mother was happened to be there at the moment of arrest, so the police took her, too, to custody. Later that day she was released, but Dragičević was held in custody the next day as well.
Soon after the arrest people started to gather at Krajina square to demonstrate. Massive police forces appeared making a barricade around the home-made memorial for David. In the overly-tensioned atmosphere they arrested Draško Stanivuković, an opposition MP and lawyer.



Sympathy demonstrations were held later that day in Belgrade...



...Zrenjanin...



...Zagreb...




...and Novi Sad.




It probably didn't do much well to the general climate of opinion that Milorad Dodik said Krajina square has been occupied illegally, claiming that it was in fact the police that was attacked. "Those who attack the police attack the state", he said adding that he would personally protect the police physically.

Interesting that the same Milorad Dodik shook hands with Davor Dragičević back in the spring when the October elections in BiH were already in the reach, just when RS's interior minister Dragan Lukač claimed the police is doing a great job about the investigation of David's death. The media was full of reporting how Dodik just stepped over Lukač's authority and analysts said Dodik clearly wanted political advance by appearing at the protests.

The latest news about the case is an interview of TV channel N1 with Dragičević's - now former - lawyer Anto Nobilo. The Croatian attorney said that David is murdered, but he was not assassinated, nor raped (as many claim), nor was his murder a conspiracy by the police and the Prosecutor's Office.
"The father [Dragičević] is desperate. I feel for him, I understand him, his son died. But in the meantime people from politics surround him and direct him. They tell him that [his son] was massacred, raped, that the police killed him, that it was ordered by the interior minister. None of these are true", claimed Nobilo.


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