Regional cooperation should and must be improved, otherwise we cannot expect to achieve progress in the processing of war crimes cases, said the chief prosecutor of the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Courts, Serge Brammertz, who met in Sarajevo with the leaders of the HJPC of BiH, the Court of BiH, Prosecutor’s Office of BiH, Ministry of Justice of BiH, and representatives of the association of war victims.
Brammertz reminded that the International Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and the residual mechanism have completed their work on the cases and that what they are dealing with now is supporting the domestic judicial authorities so that they can do their part.
“The Hague Tribunal has finished its work and prosecuted all those who were accused before the tribunal, but no one escaped justice. However, there are hundreds of those who are also accused of crimes and who mostly find residence and refuge in neighboring countries, and the crimes were committed in BiH,” added Brammertz.
Since the constitutions of those countries prohibit the extradition of their citizens to other countries, he added, there is no possibility of them being extradited and tried here for the crimes they committed.
“The only way to satisfy justice in these cases is to transfer criminal prosecution to those countries where the suspects or perpetrators are located,” said Brammertz, and added that he recently visited Belgrade, Zagreb, Podgorica where he spoke with representatives of the judiciary and there received assurances from the prosecutor’s offices there that they will process those cases if criminal prosecution is handed over to them.
Brammertz stated that in the second part of today’s meeting, they also talked with representatives of victims’ associations from all sides about how to proceed with those cases.
“I have said on several occasions that the victims’ associations have the right to criticize and be dissatisfied with the issues we discussed. My office and my team were asked, as well as the HJPC, prosecutor’s offices and other authorities, to support the process and we will do it,” Brammertz pointed out.
Today, there was talk about the processing of war crimes cases through regional cooperation with an emphasis on the transfer of war crimes cases with inaccessible persons to the judiciary of neighboring countries with the aim of solving them more efficiently, which was organized by the project Improving work on war crimes cases in Bosnia and Herzegovina”. The project is implemented by the High Judicial and Prosecutorial Council of Bosnia and Herzegovina with the financial support of the European Union.
“So, we had two meetings one after the other, which were organized because of the situation we have regarding the processing of war crimes cases, and it concerns the fact that we already have more than 40 percent of the cases with procedural obstruction, i.e. cases where suspects or even accused persons are unavailable to BiH judicial authorities. Most of these persons are located in Serbia and Croatia,” stated the President of the HJPC of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Chairman of the Supervisory Body for Work on War Crimes Cases, Halil Lagumdzija.
As he added, the situation is such that all countries of the world have constitutional provisions where it is prohibited, that is, they are not obliged to extradite their citizens to other countries and in such a situation even where there are warrants issued for persons residing in those countries, if they do not cross the borders of those countries, they have no negative consequences.
“In this context, the judiciary of Bosnia and Herzegovina recognized this problem and we concluded that we should try to improve regional cooperation regarding the transfer of criminal prosecution to those countries where suspects and accused persons are located. Otherwise, those persons will remain untouched by justice,” he added.
He noted that the role of Brammertz in future processes is immeasurable.
“She can help, don’t get me wrong, to put a positive pressure on the judiciary of neighboring countries, on the politics of neighboring countries, to take over the criminal prosecution and finally prosecute those people and try to get justice,” added Lagumdžija, Fena news agency writes.
