Milorad Barasin: We Need More Prosecutors

Q: How satisfied are you with the prosecution of war crimes?

A: There has been significant progress in the five years since the Department for War Crimes was established, reflected in the indictments against more than 200 people accused of violating of international humanitarian law. But for better results, we need many more professional staff and much greater capacity. It is important to note that among the accused are persons charged with command responsibility, soldiers, and the direct perpetrators of war crimes. We want to see justice done to the victims and their families who have waited years for it.

Q: Is it possible to meet the deadlines of the National Strategy for Prosecuting War Crimes?

A: The Strategy is a document by which our country has undertaken to resolve the burden of numerous war crimes. To meet deadlines, all judicial institutions must do their part, and the entity judicial authorities must also accept their share of the load. The Prosecutor’s Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina has filed 113 indictments for war crimes.

Generally, most institutions that dealt with war crimes lack personnel, technical equipment and facilities. Those judicial and police institutions cannot independently increase their capacities; government institutions make those decisions.

It is necessary to periodically monitor the dynamics of implementing of the strategy and take actions to correct any problems or delays.

The Prosecutor’s Office has recently overcome one problem over the coordination of activities in the process of exhumations. In future, the Prosecutor’s Office will have the authority to coordinate the process, because we are led by the view that victims and their families should not have to wait any longer, searching for their missing ones.

Q: Will the exhumations process cause problems for the Prosecutor’s Office, because they will have additional obligations and will have to go more out into the field?

A: We took over the process of exhumation for professional and human reasons – because the process was being unnecessarily politicized. The exhumations process is a highly responsible job and victims should not be getting involved in politicized disputes between the institutions.

We took over this segment of the job so that victims will not have to wait, because we understand the grief and pain of all of those who for 15 years or more have been searching for their loved ones. The process of exhumation will not take up too much time because the prosecutors will establish coordination with other institutions involved in the job. The process must go quickly and efficiently and I am sure that in future that will be the case.

Q: The National Strategy calls for a centralized database, What is your information on the total number of suspects?

A: There are about 1,000. That is the number under investigation by the Prosecutor’s Office’s Special Department for War Crimes. Note that the number of registered persons mentioned in reports is much larger than the number of suspect in opened investigations. The Ministry of Justice, which coordinates the activities on the database, has aggregate data from other Prosecutor’s Offices in Bosnia and Herzegovina regarding suspects.

Q: Will parallel investigations be carried out in other countries?

A: We want to prevent situations in which cases against the same persons are conducted by two Prosecutor’s Offices, so we are against war-crimes cases being conducted by neighbouring countries while those cases are open in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

However, the problem in this area is that some persons are registered for various war crimes whose reports were compiled by many different police and security agencies and… a unique record does not exist. The situation in this regard is now greatly improved, however. One of the tasks of the National Strategy for Prosecuting War Crimes was to collect and compile accurate data. Many positive changes have finally been introduced in this area, and the situation is better compared with previous years.

Q: You have pointed out that the indictment for the ‘Dobrovoljacka street’ case will soon be raised. Can you be specific?

A: The Prosecutor’s Office is working to complete the investigation as soon as possible. But this depends on many factors, so we never announce provisional dates for completion. Work on this case is intensified… Events related to the case of [former Bosnia presidency member Ejup] Ganic have had no impact on our work. The investigation will be completed very soon.

Q: Can we expect other indictments indicting high-ranking persons?

A: The Prosecutor’s Office also works on cases pertaining to high and middle level of command and in our cases we have accused persons who once held important functions in the political, military or police structures in Bosnia and Herzegovina. We will see more such charges in future, too. I would like to emphasize that, under the Strategy, our work focuses on the higher level of responsibility, while, according to the plan, the entity Prosecutors Offices should deal with cases against the direct perpetrators. I hope that will be realized in the future.

Q: It is said that the Prosecutor’s Office tends to work on ‘easier’ cases. Is this true?

A: This is not true. In the Prosecutor’s Office, we have pursued generals and senior officers, high political officials, and in cases conducted by us there were tens or hundreds of victims. There are also cases in which our prosecutors raised indictments for charges related to the killing of only several victims. Charges in these cases were raised because the entity Prosecutor’s Offices had not done so for years.

Q: Some communities have criticized the Prosecutor’s Office for making lengthy assessments of the sensitivity of cases and for interfering in their work?

A: The entity Prosecutor’s Offices have worked for years, before Prosecutor’s Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina was founded. I will repeat that the Department for War Crimes has existed only since 2005, so we can [only] present to the public what has been done since. Therefore, we won’t allow it to be said that the Prosecutor’s Office “did not solve this or that case for 17 years”. Why some cases were not completed in the period from 1995 to 2005 is a question for the prosecution offices in charge of those cases during that period.

Our prosecutors, in addition to their regular work, also work on assessing the sensitivity of cases. For all of us, for the state and for the victims, it would have been better had these cases been completed eight or nine years ago, and the indictees been sent to serve their sentences. The review process is going at its own pace, and the results in Bosnia and Herzegovina show the efficiency of their work.

Q: What are the biggest problems in the investigation of the war crimes? Do you have enough prosecutors?

A: The Prosecutor’s Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina is an exception because we have 18 prosecutors, while some prosecutor’s offices don’t have a department for war crimes, nor a single prosecutor working on these cases. The number of prosecutors working on these cases should be increased, because these are complex cases and, and at best, one prosecutor can only finish a few cases per year.

The next big problem is the displacement and the unavailability of witnesses. Many people who survived the horrors of war now live outside Bosnia, in Europe, or on other continents. In such cases we must wait for their arrival in Bosnia.

Another big problem is the lack of physical evidence, which in most cases was destroyed or disappeared, except in cases where the police made an investigation, which were rare situations, considering the state of war. Our physical evidence is largely based on found and exhumed remains, or on military and police official records and orders from military archives, if they are available, and if they were not removed or destroyed.

Q: The Prosecutor’s Office often signs plea agreements with indictees. Does that help in other investigations?

A: Plea agreements have proved an effective instrument in the prosecution of war crimes. Based on information obtained from the agreements, we have found the remains of many missing persons and obtained useful information on a number of perpetrators of war crimes as well as testimonies that led to convictions in other cases.

We inform the representatives of victims about the conclusion of such agreements. In almost all cases, they give consent. In this way, we obtain quality testimonies, which lead to verdicts against the indictees. Based on such agreements, the Prosecutor’s Office has obtained prison sentences of 14, 15 or 17 years, which are quite severe penalties. It is worth noting that the agreements also significantly reduce the costs of trials.

Erna Mackic is BIRN – Justice Report journalist. [email protected] Justice Report is BIRN’s weekly online publication.