PHONY WITNESS, BAD JOURNALISM, DEVALUED PULITZER

A KILLER'S TALE, A SPECIAL REPORT John F. Burns, The New York Times, November 27th, 1992. What Borislav Herak remembers most vividly about the sunny morning in late June when he and two companions gunned down 10 members of a Muslim family is the small girl, about 10 years old, who tried to hide behind her grandmother as the three Serbian nationalist soldiers opened fire from a distance of about 10 paces. The second man in the car, Sreten Damjanovic, 31, is said to have been a companion of Mr. Herak's at many of the killings. After investigators confronted him with statements by Mr. Herak and Mr. Damjanovic's wife, Nada, 46, implicating him in the Ahatovici killings, Mr. Damjanovic is said to have replied: "Is that what he said? If you put me in a cell with him, I'll kill him."

"The minuteness of the confessions, the dirtiest details about the "murder" of the still-living brothers reflects the nature of the interrogations"

By deliberately omitting the more bizarre parts of Herak's confession, Burns tried making an implausible story look credible.

DATELINE YUGOSLAVIA: THE PARTISAN PRESS Peter Brock, Foreign Policy, Winter 1993-94 The 1993 double-barreled Pulitzer Prize for international reporting, shared between "Newsday's Roy Gutman and "New York Times" correspondent John F. Burns, raised at least a few eyebrows. Burns received the award primarily for his account of seven hours of interviews with a captured Bosnian Serb soldier, Borislav Herak. Herak's confession of multiple rapes and murder occurred under the approving eyes of his Bosnian Muslim captors. Assured he would not be subjected to brutality as a prisoner, Herak also alleged that the then-commanding general of the U.N. Protection Forces (UNPROFOR), Lewis Mackenzie, had committed multiple rapes of young Muslim women. Despite its vulnerable nature, the lengthy story about the confession, without mention of the bizarre accusations against Mackenzie, went over "The New York Times" wire service on November 26, 1992, targeted for publication in large Sunday newspapers with almost no opportunity for challenge or timely rebuttal. Belgrade officials expressed serious doubts about Herak's mental competency, but during his trial the question was ignored and prosecutors offered little additional evidence beyond Herak's original confession. In a subsequent advertisement in the May 1993 issue of "The American Journalism Review," "The Times" used curious wording to describe Burns's achievement. He "has written of the destruction of a major European city and the dispossession of Sarajevo's people. He virtually discovered these events for the world outside as they happened." According to "The Washington Post", the story about Herak "knocked everyone (in the Pulitzer jury) over."

IN BOSNIA, SYMBOL OF INHUMANITY NOW SAYS HE'S INNOCENT Kit R. Roane, N.Y. Times News Service, Jan 30, 1996 SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina Thin and pale, Borislav Herak does not fit the picture of the rapist and killer he confessed to being nearly three years ago. He is quiet and subdued, an ex-store clerk residing in a 6-by-12 foot prison cell. "It was a mistake," he said simply, lighting a cigarette under the watchful gaze of a guard. "I was forced to speak against myself and my comrades in the Serb republic. But I didn't do anything." SERB CONVICTED OF MURDERS DEMANDING RETRIAL AFTER 2 "VICTIMS" FOUND ALIVE Jonathan C. Randal, The Washington Post, March 15 1997 SARAJEVO, Bosnia - Sretko Damjanovic, a Serb soldier in the Bosnian civil war, was convicted of genocide four years ago for the murders of five unarmed people, several rapes and various other crimes. Now two of his victims have turned up alive, casting doubt on the testimony that led to his conviction and spurring his lawyer to demand a retrial. The highly charged case was tried before a military tribunal run by the predominantly Muslim Bosnian government during the dark hours of 1993, when Sarajevo was enduring a long siege under Bosnian Serb artillery. Damjanovic and a friend, Borislav Herak, were convicted together and condemned to death by firing squad, a sentence later reduced to life imprisonment.

If only for the sake of protecting the integrity of the Pulitzer Prize, the erosion created by the 1993 award must be redressed.