Misplaced Pages

Darko Trifunović

Article snapshot taken from Wikipedia with creative commons attribution-sharealike license. Give it a read and then ask your questions in the chat. We can research this topic together.

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by 66.92.173.59 (talk) at 04:04, 11 July 2008 (→Career). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Revision as of 04:04, 11 July 2008 by 66.92.173.59 (talk) (→Career)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)

Darko Trifunović (Template:Lang-sr) is a lawyer and professor at the Faculty of Security Studies of the University of Belgrade. He formerly worked as a diplomat for the foreign ministry of Bosnia and Herzegovina. After leaving the diplomatic service in controversial circumstances, he prepared a widely criticized report for the Republika Srpska (Bosnian Serb) government which dispute that there had been a massacre at Srebrenica during the Bosnian War. He moved on to his current position at the University of Belgrade, where he has specialized in the study of Counter terrorism.

Career

In the late 1990s, Trifunović worked as a member of the Republika Srpska legal expert commission, where he spoke out strongly against the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia's indictment of senior Bosnian Serb military and civil officials. When he was appointed to serve as the First Secretary of the Bosnia and Herzegovina Mission to the United Nations, he became the focus of public controversy after the Bosnian press accused him of having "represented Bosnia in New York in a scandalous way, and did everything possible to promote Belgrade's interests."

He was suspended from duty at the UN in March 2002 after the illegal step of Bosnian Foreign Ministry. Bosnian Foreign Ministry lead on that time by Muslim hard liners announced that it had discovered that Trifunovic had obtained Bosnian citizenship illegally. Bosnia-Herzegovina Ministry for Civilian Affairs and Communications only institution with jurisdiction over the citizenship confirmed that Trifunovic is citizen of Bosnia and declare as illegal any decision of the Bosnian Foreign Ministry without any jurisdiction over the citizenship status of any citizen of Bosnia. Furthemore, Trifunović asserted that he had been illegally stripped of his Bosnia-Herzegovina citizenship and was illegally dismissed from his job. He accused the Bosnian government of dismissing him because he had found connections between another diplomat at the mission and two Islamic charities that had been closed down for allegedly having links with Al Qaeda.

Srebrenica massacre report controversy

In September 2002, the Bosnian Serb government's Bureau for Relations with the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia issued a Report No I disputing the Srebrenica massacre of August 1995. The report, prepared on the basis on that time available information by Trifunović, asserted that that about 2500-3000 Bosnian Muslims had died at Srebrenica instead of the 7,000-8,000 reported by international investigators and that only about 100 had been killed in summary executions. The report was condemned by the international community and human rights institutions. The ICTY had ruled a year earlier that nearly 8,000 Muslims had been murdered in an act of genocide and convicted General Radislav Krstić for his involvement in the crime. Two years after Trifunović's report was issued, the Bosnian Serb government finally admitted the scale of the killings.The Report No I was significant because it was the first time that Bosnian Serb recognize that atrocities happened in Srebrenica. After Report No I, Bosnian Serb Government issued serial reports in order to discover the facts.

Views on Radical Muslim Terrorist's

After leaving the Bosnian foreign ministry (Trifunovic sue the Bosnia and Herzegovina and trial is in the final stage), Trifunović subsequently moved on to the Faculty of Security Studies of the University of Belgrade, where he continues to work in the field of Counter Terrorism. Trifunović's views on Islamic terrorism have been the focus of significant public controversy among the radical Muslim circles in Bosnia; he has repeatedly asserted that Serbia, Kosovo and Bosnia are being infiltrated by Wahhabist extremists. He has published a number of works on this general theme, arguing that Bosnia-Herzegovina is the nexus for an international network of Islamic terrorists who are directly linked to Al Qaeda. Titles include "Islamic Fundamentalists, Global Network and Modus Operandi: Model Bosnia", "The Roots of Terrorism in Bosnia-Herzegovina and its Classic Forms" and "Terrorism and Organized Crime in Southeast Europe: the Case of Bosnia-Herzegovina". He asserts that four of the nineteen hijackers in the 9/11 attacks had Bosnian connections.

In 2003, he visited the US capital Washington, D.C. where he briefed members of the US Congress that "a group of about 300 young Kosovo Albanians the concept of a Greater Muslim state, was trained in northern Albania and then transferred to Kosovo with their trainers, mujaheddin fighters from Middle Eastern and North African countries." Following the March unrest in Kosovo, he asserted that the anti-Serb violence was "just the latest in a string of operations undertaken by Al Qaeda in the past few weeks" and that terrorist brigades and weapons were "pouring in" to the Sandžak region of Serbia and Montenegro.

Trifunović has also advocated taking a hard line on Kosovo's declaration of independence. In December 2007, he told the Belgrade daily newspaper Glas javnosti that "the very moment Pristina declares independence, Ruecker does not invalidate that decision, and the first state recognizes Kosovo, Belgrade must order tanks to go to Kosovo, the province to be shelled and returned under the sovereignty of Serbia, where it belongs under Resolution 1244." He asserted that it was an open question as to whether Western countries had also secretly promised independence to the Uyghur people of China, the Kurds of Iran and various other peoples in Central Asia.

A major protests from radical Muslim groups broke out in early January 2008 when it was announced that Trifunović had been invited to be a key speaker at the European Police Congress, to be held in Berlin at the end of the month. The news attracted fierce criticism from members of the Bosnjaci.net portal, the Congress of Bosniaks inNorth America and the Sarajevo-based Centre for Advanced Studies (organization belong to radical islamist's and Wahabby). The invitation was protested by Tarik Sadović, the Bosnia-Herzegovina controversial security minister and deputy chair of the Council of Ministers of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Trifunović canceled his planned trip to Germany, asserting that he had received death threats from Muslim extremists.The Society for Threatened Peoples followed up in February 2008 with an open letter to European, US, Serbian and Bosnian ministers, governments and police services, in which they criticized Trifunović as "a self-proclaimed 'expert on Islamist terrorism'" and urged an end to "all contact and co-operation with Dr Trifunović with immediate effect. Report was prepare from Muslim extremist working with Society for Threatened Peoples office in Sarajevo."

References

  1. ^ "Bosnian Muslims extremists object to Serb terrorism expert addressing European conference". Report from TV Hayat, Sarajevo, 1800 GMT, 5 January 2008. Via BBC Monitoring.
  2. "Bosnian Serb legal expert says Hague tribunal using medieval methods". SRNA news agency, 3 August 1998. Via BBC Monitoring.
  3. "Bosnian Diplomat's Citizenship Revoked". HINA, Croatia, 12 March 2002. Via BBC Monitoring.
  4. "Bosnian UN mission diplomat accuses Foreign Ministry of human rights violations". SRNA news agency, 13 June 2002. Via BBC Monitoring.
  5. "Bosnian diplomat says he was fired for revealing colleague's Al-Qaeda ties". SRNA news agency, 7 August 2002. Via BBC Monitoring.
  6. "Ratko Mladic : Tragic Hero", Apis Group, 2006
  7. "Imaginary Massacres?" TIME magazine, 11 September 2002
  8. "General guilty of Bosnia genocide". BBC News Online, 2 August 2001.
  9. "Serbs admit Srebrenica death toll". BBC News Online, 14 October 2004
  10. "Bosnian Al-Qaeda members plan attacks on NATO - terrorism expert". SRNA news agency, 17 October 2003. Via BBC Monitoring.
  11. "Attacks in Kosovo are work of Al Qaeda". Glas javnosti, Belgrade, 19 March 2004. Via BBC Monitoring.
  12. "Time Has Come For Us To Show Our Teeth". Glas javnosti, Belgrade, 11 December 2007. Via BBC Monitoring.
  13. "Serbia: Terrorism expert receives death threat". Adnkronos International, 21 January 2008
  14. "Dr Darko Trifunovic – Serb Nationalist, Supporter of Greater Serbia and Genocide Denier". Society for Threatened Peoples, 19 February 2008.

See also

Categories: