Hakija Turajlić

Hakija Turajlić (1936 – 8 January 1993) was a Bosnian politician, economist and businessman who served as the first Deputy Prime Minister of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina from 15 June 1992 until he was killed on 8 January 1993.[1]

Hakija Turajlić
1st Deputy Prime Minister of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina
In office
15 June 1992 – 8 January 1993
Prime MinisterJure Pelivan
Mile Akmadžić
Preceded byOffice established
Succeeded byHadžo Efendić
Personal details
Born1936 (1936)
Čapljina, Kingdom of Yugoslavia
Died8 January 1993(1993-01-08) (aged 56–57)
Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina
Cause of deathKilled in action
NationalityBosnian

Prior to the start of the 1992–95 war in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Turajlić was the director of the multifaceted Bosnian company Energoinvest and as such secured large sums of money for war preparations. He was known for his ability to cooperate, especially for persuading everyone through his own self-denial and hard work. His death at the hands of the Bosnian Serb Army in the Sarajevo neighbourhood of Stup was one of the great losses that the Bosnian government was to sustain during the war.[2]

Death
Dutch journalist Robert Dulmers beside Turajlić's grave at the Ali Pasha mosque located in central Sarajevo.

On 8 January 1993, Turajlić went to Sarajevo International Airport to greet Orhan Sefa Kilercioğlu who had accompanied an aid shipment from Turkey. In order to return to Sarajevo he had to pass through Serb-controlled territory for which UNPROFOR was supposed to provide protection. The UN convoy which was taking Turajlić to Sarajevo was stopped by Serb soldiers at a roadblock a few kilometers from the airport.[3] After a 90-minute standoff, a French UNPROFOR officer opened the door to the armoured personnel carrier in which Turajlić was sitting and a Serb soldier opened fire with an AK-47. Turajlić was hit with 7–8 rounds. The French troops did not return fire, call for reinforcements — less than six hundred yards away — or detain the killers. British troops who arrived on the scene were ordered to leave.[3] When the same French peacekeepers came home to France, they were decorated for heroism.[4][5]

His death strained relations between the Bosnian government and UNPROFOR and was also the reason that peace talks in Geneva were cancelled. The United Nations and the Serbs both refused to cooperate with the Bosnian government investigation and help find the killer. A Bosnian Serb soldier, Goran Vasić, was eventually charged with Turajlić's murder but ultimately acquitted of that charge in 2002.[6][7] In 1998, a wall about ten meters long and just under two meters high, reminiscent of the Berlin Wall, was put up by residents in Dobrinja after the Bosnian police entered a Bosnian Serb suburb to arrest Vasić.[8]

Honors

A street in the Dobrinja section of Sarajevo and a street in Sanski Most is named in Turajlić's honor.

A Boxing tournament Memorijal Hakija Turajlić takes place in Sarajevo every year in his honor. Since 1994, more than 400 boxers from 30 countries participated in this tournament. From 1998 until 2008, it was one of strongest amateur boxing tournaments in Bosnia and Herzegovina.[9][10]

References
  1. "Bosnian official's slaying shatters Muslim trust in UN protection". Dallas Morning News. 10 February 1993.
  2. Pejanović, M. (2004). Through Bosnian Eyes: The Political Memoir of a Bosnian Serb. Purdue University Press. ISBN 9781557533593.
  3. LeBor, A. (2006). "Complicity with Evil": The United Nations in the Age of Modern Genocide. Yale University Press. ISBN 9780300111712.
  4. Sells, M.A. (1996). The Bridge Betrayed: Religion and Genocide in Bosnia. University of California Press. ISBN 9780520922099.
  5. Maass, Peter (9 January 1993). "Top Official Assassinated in Bosnia". The Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 12 July 2022.
  6. WORLD; In Brief. Archived 15 October 2012 at the Wayback Machine Washington Post, 4 January 2002. Quote:"A Sarajevo court has convicted a Bosnian Serb soldier of committing war crimes against prisoners but acquitted him of killing the country's deputy prime minister. Goran Vasić was sentenced to 4½ years in prison, local media reported. He was convicted on charges of beating prisoners at the Medjarici camp in Sarajevo during the country's 1992–1995 war. The court said it lacked evidence to convict him of killing Hakija Turajlić, the deputy prime minister of Bosnia in 1992."
  7. Fischer, H.; McDonald, A.; Dugard, J.; Gasser, H.P.; Greenwood, C.; Fenrick, W.; Posse, H.G. (2011). Yearbook of International Humanitarian Law - 2001. T.M.C. Asser Press. ISBN 9789067041690.
  8. "BBC News | EUROPE | Bosnian Serbs build symbolic wall in Sarajevo". BBC News Online. Retrieved 12 July 2014.
  9. "Bosnia". amateur-boxing.strefa.pl. Retrieved 17 May 2018.
  10. "Elita svjetskog boksa u Sarajevu". SportSport.ba (in Bosnian). Retrieved 1 June 2018.
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