The search for justice for eight Serb JNA reservists executed in a Sarajevo park in 1992 has been marred by wildly varying witness accounts and judicial missteps. Now, two men identified as the shooters tell BIRN they have been made scapegoats for the actions of others.
BIRN/Balkan Insight ★ 4 November 2026
In April 1992, eight captured Yugoslav Army (JNA) reservists were shot dead in Sarajevo’s Veliki Park. More than thirty years later, the remains of six of them have never been found, and the only trial (Vikić et al.) ended in four acquittals.
Two men named as perpetrators in the indictment, Nedžad Herenda and Edvin Jusić, were never heard in court. Both are on Interpol Red Notices, and both tell me they did not fire.
I interviewed both men, in the Netherlands and Germany, compared it with the first-instance and appeal judgments of the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and obtained Herenda’s judicial files, which contains emails from a former international prosecutor on the case who calls Herenda a “possible scapegoat”.
What emerged: both men say they left Bosnia under threat and have no faith in its judiciary; Herenda says he would never get a fair trial there. The case record shows witness statements contradicting each other, several resting on hearsay. A prosecutor on the case was later given a written warning over negligence.
This is the first publication for the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN), as part of a larger ongoing investigation.
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