Damir Kaletović

Who is Damir Kaletović?

Damir Kaletović is a controversial reporter from Tuzla. He works for RTVFBIH, the public-service broadcasting organization of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina entity of Bosnia and Herzegovina. He became unpopular among Bosniak people while working for TV magazine called "60 minuta" when it started a long-standing campaign in 2002 against different Muslim institutions, groups and individuals during anti-Muslim hysteria that followed in Europe and the United States after the 11 September attacks on the World Trade Center. In some of his reportages he accused six Algerian humanitarians known as the Algerian group of alleged terrorism. He also restored favourite subject by Serbian and Croatian propaganda from 1990s about alleged islamic fundamentalism and war crimes of Alija Izetbegović, the first president of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

His last controversial claim from September 2009 shocked the public in Bosnia and Herzegovina. It states that Bosnian Army led by Bosniaks committed ethnic cleansing in Central Bosnia against Croats and started Croat-Bosniak war in 1993. However, the claim is not supported by numerous International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia judgements against Croat political and military leaders in Central Bosnia convicted for initiation of the Croat-Bosniak war and ethnic cleansing as crime against humanity. Based on the evidence of numerous Croatian Defence Council attacks at that time, the ICTY Trial Chamber concluded in the Kordić and Čerkez case that by April 1993 Croat leadership had a common design or plan conceived and executed to ethnically cleanse Bosniaks from the Lašva Valley in Central Bosnia. Dario Kordić, as the local political leader, was found to be the planner and instigator of this plan. Regarding the outbreak of hostilities in Central Bosnia, ICTY concluded that on January 10, 1993, the Croat Defence Council commander Luka Šekerija in Gornji Vakuf, sent a "Military – Top Secret" request to Colonel Tihomir Blaškić and Dario Kordić, for rounds of mortar shells available at the ammunition factory in Vitez. Fighting then broke out in Gornji Vakuf on January 11, 1993, sparked by a bomb which had been placed by Croats in a Bosniak-owned hotel that had been used as a military headquarters. A general outbreak of fighting followed and there was heavy shelling of the town that night by Croat artillery. Further concluding that the Croatian Army was involved in the campaign, the ICTY defined the events as an international conflict between Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia.