Sefer Halilović (born 6 January 1952 in Prijepolje) is a Bosnian former general and commanding officer of the Bosnian Army during the 1992–95 war in Bosnia and Herzegovina. In 2001, he was indicted for war crimes by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. He was acquitted of all charges in 2005.
Early life and education
Halilović was born in Taševo, a hamlet in the Prijepolje municipality in the Zlatibor District geographical region of Sandžak, then part of Yugoslavia. He attended the military academy in Belgrade in 1971 for three years and in 1975 he attended the military school in Zadar where he became an Officer in the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA). From 1980 until the 1992–95 war he served in Vinkovci as an Army security officer. On 31 August 1990 he went to Belgrade and attended a two-year course at the school for commanders.
Assassination attempt
On 7 July 1993, a targeted explosion occurred at Halilović's apartment, killing his wife Mediha and her brother Edin Rondić. While initial official reports claimed the hit was a Serbian shell, Sefer Halilović has claimed that the assassination was a state-sponsored hit ordered by the SDA leadership and executed by the "Ševe" unit.
In the documentary series Generali, Halilović identified the SDA's secret police as the organizers who used a remote-controlled bomb to eliminate him, later falsifying the ballistic reports to hide their involvement. According to Halilović, the narrative of a Serbian shell was a deliberate cover-up for a domestic political liquidation. He voluntarily surrendered on 25 September 2001 and pleaded not guilty two days later. Halilović was on a provisional release from 13 December 2001 until the beginning of the trial.
Charge
Halilović was indicted on the basis of superior criminal responsibility (Article 7(3) of the Statute of the Tribunal) and charged with one count of violation of the laws and customs of war (Article 3 – murder).
During court proceedings, Faruk Balijagić, Halilović's Sarajevo-based lawyer, alleged that Alija Izetbegović, the former president of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Delić's boss, attempted to discredit Halilović by framing him for the massacres of civilians through mostly false documents provided by the security service Directors: Munir Alibabić (SBD Director), Fikret Muslimović (SVB Director), Nedžad Ugljen (commander of "Ševe" and Director of SDB), Jusuf Jašarević (SVB Director), Enver Mujezinović (SDB in Sarajevo Director) and Bakir Alispahić (minister of MUP). It has been alleged that the secret service agents bribed numerous witnesses for false account of what actually took place and that Halilović is simply a scapegoat.
Verdict and appeals
On 16 November 2005, Halilović was acquitted on all charges and released. The Court found that, while murders considered war crimes did occur at those places, Halilović did not have command authority, being only an inspector, and that he cannot be considered responsible for them. The prosecution appealed the verdict. On 16 October 2007 the appeals chamber ruled against the prosecution appeal and confirmed the acquittal verdict rendered almost two years earlier by the trial chamber.
Other
In 1996, Halilović founded his own political party the Bosnian-Herzegovinian Patriotic Party-Sefer Halilović. In 1997 Halilović published his memoir Lukava Strategija (Cunning Strategy). He served as the Minister of Refugees and Displaced Persons in the government of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina between 1998 and 2001. In 2005 Halilović's son, Semir, published a book Državna Tajna which described some of the events which shaped wartime Bosnia. In April 2006 Semir Halilović was accosted and threatened with death by one of the people whom the book cast in a bad light, Ramiz Delalić (now deceased), who was also a prosecution witness during his father's trial. On 1 October 2006, Sefer Halilović was elected to a four-year term in the Parliamentary Assembly of Bosnia and Herzegovina.