Research by the Balkan Research Network of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BIRN BiH) on the basis of first- and second-instance verdicts in the last ten years for crimes related to hatred reveals uneven processing and recording of these crimes, for which suspended sentences are most often imposed.
Story 1: Doboj
Mihnet Okic was at the head of a convoy of about 400 people on April 29th, 1996 when they encountered an armed ambush. A few months after the signing of the Dayton Peace Agreement, they went on a tour of Sjenina near Doboj, from which they fled during the war. For Eid, they planned to visit cemeteries and destroyed houses, accompanied by international peacekeeping troops of IFOR. But, according to Okic, near the village of Kapetanovici, the column was attacked by mortars, machine guns and snipers.
To this day, no one has been held accountable for the crime in which several people died.
Mihnet believes that this and other crimes against returnees to the Republika Srpska (RS) have been forgotten.
“There are somewhere, I think, around 15 murdered returnees, in the return phase, and none of the cases have been brought to an end and no one has been convicted of those crimes,” he adds.
BIRN of BiH can now confirm that it took more than 24 years for the judiciary in Doboj and the prosecutor to deliver the order to the police to conduct the investigation.
The District Public Prosecutor’s Office in Doboj confirmed that an order was passed to conduct an investigation into the murders of Okic and Osmanovic against one or more unknown perpetrators.
Judgments
Research by the BIRN BiH based on first- and second-instance verdicts for hate crimes and verdicts with the qualification “inciting national and religious hatred, discord and intolerance” shows that, even when indictments are issued, the verdicts are most often conditional, lower than one year or acquittal.
Low penalties reduce deterrence
BIRN BiH requested all courts in BiH with a request for free access to information for access to data on judgments for criminal offenses committed out of hatred or criminal offenses of inciting hatred in the last ten years – from October 2011 to October 2021. Out of a total of 69 courts, 21 of them delivered more than 45 verdicts for these criminal acts in the last ten years, first-instance and final. The Court of BiH submitted information on five judgments from which sufficient information was provided that it was a crime of inciting hatred.
Story 2: Srebrenica
Pasa Mustafic was killed in 2005 by an explosive device near her home in Pecista near Srebrenica. Her son, Safet Mustafic, tells BIRN BiH that she returned a year earlier, when mass returns were in progress and offensive contents were written on the houses of Bosniaks.
”To date, no one has been held accountable for the death of his mother, and the Zvornik Police Department, in charge of the police station in Srebrenica, states that they forwarded this case to the District Public Prosecutor’s Office in Bijeljina. Mustaficgave a statement to the Prosecutor’s Office in Bijeljina, but no one informed him about the progress of the investigation, ” Safet explained, Detektor writes.
E.Dz.
