In the former camp Omarska near Prijedor, the 32nd anniversary of the beginning of the dissolution, that is, the closing of this concentration camp, was marked today.
According to the data of the Hague Tribunal, more than 3,334 inmates were detained in the camp, and around 700 people were killed.
The Omarska, Trnopolje and Keraterm camps were established by the decision of the Crisis Staff of the Prijedor municipality at the time.
“The commemoration took place as in all previous years with speeches by representatives of the association, organizers, surviving camp inmates, family members, a photo exhibition in the White House itself, and 478 white ribbons with the names of murdered camp inmates from the Omarska camp were distributed,” said Feni, president of the Regional Association of Associations Banja Luka region inmate Mirsad Duratović.
He pointed out that this celebration sent messages, and the most criticism was directed at the work of the Prosecutor’s Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
“Criticisms are directed mainly at the Prosecutor’s Office because when it comes to Prijedor, the ratification of the war crime not only for the Omarska camp, but much more for the crimes that were committed on the ground outside the camp, is somehow stopped,” said Duratović.
He emphasized that the inmates insist on prosecuting the direct perpetrators of the crime, and not only, as was the case before, persons who were convicted of command responsibility.
“We are primarily interested in those who pulled the trigger, who held various objects in the Omarska camp, with which they killed the inmates. We want those people to be brought to justice, and the Prosecutor’s Office stopped those processes, but all the war crimes that were committed outside the camp – on the ground where more than 2,000 people were killed, they are waiting for processing,” he pointed out.
Because of the crimes committed in the Omarska camp, the International Criminal Court for the former Yugoslavia was formed in The Hague. The first trial and the first verdict before the Hague Tribunal were precisely for the crimes committed in this camp. Due to the mass rape of female detainees in this camp, rape was characterized as a war crime for the first time in judicial practice.
For crimes committed in camps in the area of Prijedor, 11 people were convicted in The Hague, and four more before the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina after their case was transferred from The Hague Tribunal, BHRT writes.
