The Interior Minister of Bosnia’s Serb-majority region denied on Tuesday that police used force when it dealt with the supporters of the ‘Justice for David’ group in December, saying that if the same kind of unrest would have taken place in the US, police there would have been able to shoot the protesters without consequences.
The ‘Justice for David’ movement organised a mass protest on December 25 in Banja Luka, the administrative centre of Bosnia’s Republika Srpska (RS) entity, demanding the truth about the murder of 21-year-old David Dragicevic.
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Video footage showing how RS police chased away protesters and handled those whom they detained, which included opposition leaders, sparked outrage across the country and prompted international organisations to react.
“None of the police officers on the Krajina Square had beaten any children. That is not true. There is video footage proving it,” RS Interior Minister Dragan Lukac said as he presented a report on the police operation to the RS National Assembly.
However, he said that there is footage showing that the protesters attacked the police, but that nobody is talking about that.
“Who and in what country has the right to kick a police officer while he’s on the ground? We could have sent all our police forces to ‘break those bullies’, but we didn’t do that, even when a police officer was assaulted,” Lukac said.
If the same thing would have happened in the United States, the police officer could have pulled out a gun and started shooting the protesters, and he would not have been convicted, Lukac said.
“Our police officer did not do that but endured,” he said.
“The next day we found all those bullies that assaulted the officers and detained them, and they will be prosecuted in accordance with the law,” he said.
He added that opposition MP’s in the RS National Assembly who were allegedly involved in those attacks on the officers will also be prosecuted.
“The RS Interior Ministry has submitted reports to the Prosecutor’s Office, which will review all the evidence based on the video footage and witness testimonies and will also submit lawsuits against officers if they did anything not in accordance with the law,” he said.
David Dragicevic was murdered in March 2018 and initially, police said that he had taken drugs and drowned in a nearby river. This explanation sparked public outrage and angered the young man’s father who swore he would pursue justice no matter what.
Davor Dragicevic, the young man’s father, believes police is covering up the murder and protecting some politically connected suspects.
