The Chief Prosecutor of the Prosecutor’s Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Milanko Kajganić, filed a disciplinary complaint against Prosecutor Izet Odobašić with the Office of the Disciplinary Council.
As previously reported, Odobašić submitted information to the Standing Committee on Efficiency and Quality of the Prosecutor’s Office of the HJPC in which he claimed that Chief Prosecutor Kajganić prohibited sending the indictment for crimes in Sanski Most and Manjača to the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina for confirmation. Following these claims, victims’ associations announced protests.
“Regarding the recent information in the public domain concerning the work on this case of the Prosecutor’s Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina related to events in Sanski Most in 1992, and in the interest of objective public information, it is announced that on February 3, 2026, Chief Prosecutor Kajganić filed a disciplinary complaint against Prosecutor Odobašić with the Office of the Disciplinary Council due to disciplinary violations, including non-compliance with legally prescribed instructions from the supervising prosecutor and breaches of the Prosecutor’s Ethical Code, which damaged the reputation and integrity of the judiciary,” the Prosecutor’s Office stated.
According to the statement, Prosecutor Odobašić was instructed on March 26, 2024, to complete the investigation in the case and issue a prosecutorial decision by December 1, 2024.
“However, a year after the deadline, on December 2, 2025, he submitted to the Office of the Chief Prosecutor a draft order to conduct the investigation, which was incomplete, unclear, and fully contrary to the established practice of the Prosecutor’s Office and the Court of BiH. The draft largely contained text copied from other cases. For these reasons, and in accordance with secondary legislation, the document was returned to him for revision and correction of the identified deficiencies,” the statement continued.
The Prosecutor’s Office emphasized that providing instructions and guidance to prosecutors to correct deficiencies is standard practice, in line with HJPC guidelines, and occurs almost daily. In 2025 alone, dozens of such instructions were issued to prevent situations where indictments would be repeatedly returned by the Court of BiH for revision or rejected due to procedural deficiencies.
Instead of following the instructions and correcting the case documents, Odobašić ignored the legal directives and submitted, on December 30, 2025, just two days before the end of the year, a draft indictment containing the same deficiencies as the earlier draft order. The submission appeared intended to mark the case as completed by December 31 in order to meet his annual quota, despite having achieved only nine percent of the 2025 annual norm at that time.
“Since the prosecutor did not comply with the instructions, the management of the Special Department for War Crimes was instructed to arrange meetings with the acting and other prosecutors to assist Odobašić in completing the investigation and filing the indictment. However, knowing that he could not correct the deficiencies in the remaining two days of the year, and in order to justify his own ineffective conduct, Prosecutor Odobašić publicly claimed that the Chief Prosecutor had prohibited him from acting, thereby committing the disciplinary violations mentioned above,” the Prosecutor’s Office statement concluded.
“It is absolutely incorrect to claim that the Chief Prosecutor prohibited anyone from filing an indictment. Both the Chief Prosecutor and the management of the Special Department for War Crimes encourage and support prosecutors to achieve the best possible results, in line with professional norms and standards. To ensure the proper, lawful, and efficient completion of this case, the management of the Special Department has been instructed to take all necessary measures in coordination with section heads and prosecutors working on similar and related cases, which are currently being carried out. The public will be informed of the results,” the statement added.
