In 2021, the Prosecutor’s Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) filed 21 indictments against 56 persons, six of whom are not available to the judiciary in BiH. Among them is the former commander of the Drina Corps of the Army of Republika Srpska (VRS), Milenko Zivanovic, who was also accused by the Serbian War Crimes Prosecution of crimes in Srebrenica.
In the program he presented to the High Judicial and Prosecutorial Council (HJPC), Milanko Kajganic stated that he would reduce the number of war crimes cases – by transferring less complex cases to lower prosecutor’s offices, as well as those against persons unavailable in their countries of residence – by working on the most complex cases, but also that he would reduce the number of unsolved investigations and reports in cases of early crimes.
“The prosecutor’s office will no longer be ‘burdened’ by the number of indictments filed, but only by the obligation to work on the most complex cases,” the work program states.
According to the Revised Strategy for Working on War Crimes, the State Prosecutor’s Office is obliged to work on the most complex cases, while less complex ones should be forwarded to the Entity and Brcko District Prosecutor’s Offices. However, more than two years after it was adopted, the Council of Ministers did not appoint a supervisory body that would, among other things, monitor these cases, and interlocutors within the judiciary recently said to the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network of BiH (BIRN BiH) that they doubt that these cases will be concluded within the deadline set by this document.
Before being appointed to the position of chief prosecutor of the State Prosecutor’s Office, Milanko Kajganic, presenting his program to the HJPC, said that the focus would be on fulfilling the objectives of the Revised Strategy, but he also referred to unavailable persons.
In its latest report, “Race against time – progress and challenges in the implementation of the State strategy for work on war crimes cases”, the OSCE mission in BiH referred to the problem that 35 percent of suspects, who are awaiting prosecution in the Prosecutor’s Office of BiH, are unavailable to state judicial bodies, and the improvement of regional cooperation is recommended.
“Unfortunately, since the adoption of the Strategy, there has been a lack of real and consistent cooperation. Despite the surge of optimism caused by the signing of agreements on prosecutorial cooperation between the institutions of states in the region and the consequent successes in some well-known cases, regional cooperation could eventually be described as inconsistent,” the report states.
Convictions for participation in murders
After seven years of trial, seven former members of the VRS received a non-final sentence to a total of 91 years in prison for their participation in the kidnapping of 20 civilians from a train in Strpci on February 27th, 1993, who were killed in the Visegrad area. It is interesting that, according to the order of the Court of BiH, the day before the verdict, the accused who were released pending trial were arrested.
For years, the public’s attention was attracted by the trial of Dragan Vikic, Jusuf Pusina, Nermin Uzunovic and Nermin Covcic, who in 2022, after several years of proceedings, were legally acquitted of the murder of eight members of the Yugoslav People’s Army (JNA) in Sarajevo’s Veliki Park on April 22nd, 1992.
The acquittal for the genocide in Srebrenica was confirmed for former police chiefs Miodrag Josipovic, Branimir Tesic, Dragomir Vasic, Danilo Zoljic, and Radomir Pantic, Detektor reports.
E.Dz.
