Post by radovic on Apr 17, 2008 10:00:35 GMT -5
Dead Serbian Muslim Cleared After 62 Years
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Novi Pazar17 April 2008 Novi Pazar _ Arif Torbic, a Serbian Muslim tradesman, has been cleared of treason, 62 years after he was executed for the crime.
Torbic was executed in 1946 after having nearly all his property confiscated but no one knows who exactly shot him and where.
His three grandchildren, Sabahudin, Munevera and Muzafera, won a two-year long legal battle for his rehabilitation, the first of its kind at the Novi Pazar municipal court.
The Judges' Panel declared the 1946 verdict “biased on ideological and political grounds” and as such unfounded because no lawful evidence had been presented to incriminate Arif of any “wrongdoing against the people and the state.”
The panel was unable to determine why Arif was considered an enemy of the state in the first place.
About a dozen witnesses testified he had never taken part in any war during his lifetime, nor belonged to a wartime political organisation or committed any war crimes.
Torbic owned a number of businesses in Novi Pazar and the nearby town of Tutin, and a house and a shop in Pec in neighbouring Kosovo. His wife and children who survived were left with only their Novi Pazar home.
“The exonerating verdict is a moral satisfaction for our family because we had to carry the burden of being a family of state enemies all this time and we have finally cleared our name,” said Sabahudin Torbic, one of Arif’s three grandchildren.
“My grandfather was a believer and a charitable person, he gave shelter to more than 40 families from Bosnia during the Second World War,” Sabahudin said.
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Novi Pazar17 April 2008 Novi Pazar _ Arif Torbic, a Serbian Muslim tradesman, has been cleared of treason, 62 years after he was executed for the crime.
Torbic was executed in 1946 after having nearly all his property confiscated but no one knows who exactly shot him and where.
His three grandchildren, Sabahudin, Munevera and Muzafera, won a two-year long legal battle for his rehabilitation, the first of its kind at the Novi Pazar municipal court.
The Judges' Panel declared the 1946 verdict “biased on ideological and political grounds” and as such unfounded because no lawful evidence had been presented to incriminate Arif of any “wrongdoing against the people and the state.”
The panel was unable to determine why Arif was considered an enemy of the state in the first place.
About a dozen witnesses testified he had never taken part in any war during his lifetime, nor belonged to a wartime political organisation or committed any war crimes.
Torbic owned a number of businesses in Novi Pazar and the nearby town of Tutin, and a house and a shop in Pec in neighbouring Kosovo. His wife and children who survived were left with only their Novi Pazar home.
“The exonerating verdict is a moral satisfaction for our family because we had to carry the burden of being a family of state enemies all this time and we have finally cleared our name,” said Sabahudin Torbic, one of Arif’s three grandchildren.
“My grandfather was a believer and a charitable person, he gave shelter to more than 40 families from Bosnia during the Second World War,” Sabahudin said.