It was announced by the Ministry of Justice and Administration of the Republic of Croatia that they had received a request from the Prosecutor’s Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) to take over the criminal prosecution, on suspicion of violating international law within the military operation “Flash” (Bljesak).
The Prosecutor’s Office of BiH has not yet responded to these allegations.
In the meantime, legal issues are increasingly becoming political. Thus, the Croatian political leadership openly warns that relations between BiH and Croatia are strained.
Although the names of 14 Croatian generals who were suspected of war crimes during the Bljesak military operation have not been officially announced, the unofficial list that appeared in the media also includes the name of Croatian Army admiral Davor Domazet. Admiral claims – all this is a political game to which Zagreb silently agrees.
“In my opinion, neither Sarajevo, nor Banja Luka, nor Belgrade are as guilty as Zagreb, which has been silently watching it for 20 years now,” told Davor Domazet Loso, a retired admiral of the Croatian Army.
Until today, the Prosecutor’s Office of BiH has not yet confirmed who are those persons and whether the request refers only to Operation Bljesak or also military operations that were conducted on the territory of BiH – Maestral or Southern Move(Juzni Potez). According to Croatian media, it is presumed that the persons participated in issuing orders for reckless shelling and artillery action on the civilian targets of Gradiska and Kozarska Dubica and that several Serb civilians were killed.
“Apart from the news for two or three days, I am skeptical whether the Croatian judiciary will do anything about the transferred case, and on the other hand, 14 years have obviously passed since 2007 and the BiH judiciary was not interested in prosecuting these crimes or conducting an investigation,” mentioned Milorad Kojic, director of the Republic Center for Research of War, War Crimes, and Search for Missing Persons in Republika Srpska (RS).
“There is no legal basis for the Prosecutor’s Office of BiH to initiate activities related to the initiation of criminal proceedings against Croatian generals unless it is about operations conducted on the BiH territory,” said Zeljko Komsic, Chairman of the Presidency of BiH.
“It is a kind of sabotage and poisoning of relations between the two countries. It is a much smaller problem of a technical nature whether or not we will cooperate than the fact that such indictments or investigations appear at all, ” told Zoran Milanovic, President of the Republic of Croatia, BHRT writes.
E.Dz.
