Encourage Cooperation For Faster Processing of War Crimes

Yesterday in Vitez a meeting was held between representatives of civil society and association of victims of war crimes with representatives of the judiciary of the Zenica-Doboj and Central Bosnia Canton. The goal of this and similar meetings is a faster and more efficient processing of war crimes. In the implementation of strategies for processing war crimes the obligation is to complete the most difficult cases within seven years, and other cases for 15 years.

“We are already slowly approaching the end of these deadlines for both categories, and a large number of cases have not yet been processed and are in the phase of investigation or in the courts by the prosecutors. One of the key reasons why war crimes are not being processed efficiently is the role of the witness. So, this entails reluctance of fear of the witness to participate in the processing of these war crimes’’, said Amra Hamidović, Legal Advisor for the OSCE field office in Tuzla.

In BiH from 2004 until March 2013, around 214 war crimes cases have been solved, in which 235 people have been sentenced to 2.262 years in prison. Before the judicial institutions in BiH, 1.315 cases are waiting to be processed. Representatives of associations of war crime victims are not satisfied with the dynamics of processing of war crimes cases in BiH. From the other side, prosecutors have a problem of how to secure witnesses, and the problem is a small number of prosecutors and low material-financial conditions.

(Source: Dnevni Avaz)