Đorđe Martinović (also spelled Djordje Martinović; Serbian Cyrillic: Ђорђе Мартиновић; 1929 – 6 September 2000 Čitluk, Serbia) was a Serbian farmer from Kosovo who was at the centre of a notorious incident in May 1985, when he was treated for injuries caused by the insertion of a bottle into his anus. The Martinović affair, as it became known, turned into a cause célèbre in Serbian politics. Although the facts of the incident remained in dispute for years afterwards, it played a significant role in worsening ethnic tensions between Kosovo's Serb and Albanian population.
The incident
On 1 May 1985, Đorđe Martinović, a 56-year-old resident of the Kosovo town of Gnjilane, arrived at the local hospital with a broken bottle wedged in his rectum. He claimed that he had been attacked by two Albanian men while he was working in his field. After being interrogated by a Yugoslav People's Army colonel, Martinović reportedly admitted that his injuries had been self-inflicted in a botched attempt at masturbation. Public investigators reported that "the prosecutor made a written conclusion from...