Account of an event · Bijeljina · April 2, 1992
A Boot Over the Body of Tifa Šabanović: Who Is the Soldier in Ron Haviv's Photograph from Bijeljina
On 2 April 1992, the Srpska dobrovoljačka garda, known as "Arkan's Tigers", attacked Bijeljina, and the American photojournalist Ron Haviv photographed a member of the unit swinging his boot over the body of a murdered civilian, Tifa Šabanović. For three decades the soldier in the photograph remained nameless, until a 2022 investigation by Rolling Stone magazine pointed to a Belgrade DJ. He has not been indicted, and his identification remains a journalistic conclusion.
The Attack on Bijeljina
On 2 April 1992, the paramilitary unit Srpska dobrovoljačka garda, known as "Arkan's Tigers", together with allied armed groups, attacked Bijeljina. The unit was commanded by Željko Ražnatović "Arkan". According to one source, the soldiers told the residents that they had come to liberate them.
According to data from the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), also cited by Rolling Stone, the Tigers and their allies killed at least 48 people in Bijeljina over two days.
Killed in the Street
On the same day, 2 April 1992, Abdurahman Pajaziti was fatally shot. His wife Hamijeta tried to help him and was herself killed immediately afterwards. Among those killed that day was also a civilian, Tifa Šabanović.
Her daughter-in-law, D. M., survived the attack. According to one source, she was 20 years old at the time and pregnant.
The Photograph
The American photojournalist Ron Haviv was in Bijeljina that day with Arkan's Tigers. He photographed a member of the unit – a young man in uniform, with a cigarette and sunglasses – swinging his boot over the body of Tifa Šabanović. Beside her lie the bodies of Hamijeta and Abdurahman Pajaziti.
Arkan demanded that Haviv hand over his film. Haviv managed to hide some of it and take it out of the country. His photographs were published two weeks later in Time magazine, in the report "The Killing Continues". The photograph of the soldier with the boot became one of the best-known photographs of the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
No Trial
Željko Ražnatović "Arkan" was indicted by the ICTY for war crimes and was killed in January 2000. Most members of Arkan's Tigers deployed in Bijeljina were never publicly identified, and none of them has been brought to trial for the crimes committed in Bijeljina.
Who Is the Soldier in the Photograph?
For three decades, the man who swung his boot over the body of Tifa Šabanović remained nameless. On 28 December 2022, Rolling Stone magazine, in cooperation with Starling Lab, published an investigation and a digital archive dedicated to the photograph from Bijeljina.
On the basis of other images that, according to the investigation, show the same man, and of distinctive identifying features, the authors concluded that the trail leads to a man who has for years performed as a DJ in Belgrade. In the course of the investigation, Rolling Stone also obtained secret payroll lists of the Serbian State Security from 1994 and 1995.
This man has not been indicted or convicted. According to the Rolling Stone investigation, he is probably the soldier in the photograph – but this is a journalists' conclusion, not a fact established by a court. The question of who the soldier in Haviv's photograph is has never been put before a court.