In the coming period, the representatives of the state parliament should discuss a proposal for amendments to the Criminal Code of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which would prevent the current possibility of buying out the prison sentence of those convicted of war crimes with a sentence of up to one year, which is the practice which members of the victims’ association strongly oppose.
The changes that would abolish the possibility of redeeming the sentence by paying the fine were initiated by Saša Magazinović, a representative in the House of Representatives of the BiH Parliamentary Assembly (BiH PA), who sent the proposal to the parliamentary procedure. Such cases of paying out the prison sentence of those convicted of war crimes whose sentence was imposed up to one year have been recorded, as stated by Magazinović, in as many as eight cases in the last five years.
The President of the Association of Victims and Witnesses of Genocide Murat Tahirović told FENA that he fully supports the proposal regarding those convicted of war crimes and considers it necessary, bearing in mind that the sentences that are imposed are small anyway.
“Paying out the sentence cannot satisfy the justice expected by the victims. When the sentence has already been pronounced and if it is final, then at least the convict should serve the part of the sentence to which it refers,” Muratović pointed out.
He believes that the rule book should be amended to include the judgments of the International Criminal Court for the former Yugoslavia in the record of criminal judgments, in order to equate all other criminal offenses with those convicted in The Hague.
“We have a situation where persons who have been sentenced for the most serious crimes before the International Criminal Court for the former Yugoslavia are not on record in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The law simply does not recognize them as such and they can hold any office, run for office wherever they want when they serve their sentences, that is, when they return to Bosnia and Herzegovina,” says Tahirović.
The president of the “Women Victims of War” Association, Bakira Hasečić, says that it is catastrophic that convicted war criminals can buy out their prison sentence, and that the provision of the law that allows this needs to be abolished.
“It is incomprehensible that those sentenced for war crimes for up to a year can buy out one day of a prison sentence for 100 KM, that they can pay and not serve what they were sentenced for. It is catastrophic,” Hasečić told FENA.
She pointed out that, although there are final judgments where war criminals have been convicted of rape and sexual abuse, the surviving victims cannot collect compensation, because the criminals already transferred their property to third parties.
“We wonder if a convicted war criminal pays a sentence of up to one year and is released, where do those funds go, in which budget, what is done with those funds. If they had already planned these funds, why didn’t they compensate the victims,” Hasečić asked.
He emphasizes that the practice of redeeming a prison sentence is humiliating for the victims, but also for every normal citizen of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
TRIAL International BiH told FENA that the possibility and practice of replacing prison sentences with fines send discouraging messages to victims of war crimes.
They underline that “this kind of practice also sends a devastating message to society about how war crimes are treated as horrid acts from the 1990s that left an indelible mark on the lives of so many citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina.”
