Local Justice: Bosnia’s ‘Scheveningen’ Prepares to Receive First Convicts

More than three million KM (€1.5) have been spent to build the special section, which consists of 58 cells which will hold convicts who cannot adapt to serving their sentences in more collective settings or pose a threat to other convicts.

Dzerard Selman, Justice Minister of Republika Srpska, RS, says that no request for accommodation of convicts in “Bosnia’s Scheveningen”, referring to the Hague Tribunal’s Detention Unit, have been received as yet.

However, he says that the situation will change once the agreement between justice ministries of Bosnia and Herzegovina and RS has been amended. The deal will allow persons convicted by the state court to serve their sentences in the newly-built section of the Foca prison, which is located in Republika Srpska.

Bosnia has three justice ministries, one at the state level, one in the predominantly Serb entity Republika Srpska, and one in the majority Bosniak-Croat Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Selman said that the price of accommodation of state court convicts in the new section of Foca prison would remain the same until the end of the year. However, the RS Justice Minister said that the agreement for serving sentences in “regular and the special prisons” would have to be revised, because the costs of accommodation were increasing.

According to unofficial data, the state-level Justice Ministry pays a daily fee of KM 48 for each state court convict accommodated in prisons in RS.

While the Foca prison has seen one high-profile escape, the RS justice minister said that security at the special section would be strict.

Radovan Stankovic, who was sentenced, under a second instance verdict pronounced by the State Court in April 2007, to 20 years in prison for crimes committed in Foca, fled while serving his sentence in the prison there. He remains at large.

RS Justice Minister Selman says that the special section of Foca prison will be the strictest and heaviest guarded prison in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The section will be filled with single-bed prison cells with bathrooms and the possibility of 24-hour video surveillance. Isolation cells have bathrooms as well. The prison management will be able to turn the electricity and water on or off in each of the cells separately.

“The individuals accommodated here will be totally isolated. There is no collective serving of sentence and no socialization. Walks take place individually only. This is simply an individual serving of a sentence,” Sinisa Golijanin, Director of the Penal and Correctional Facility in Foca, explains.

Although the special prison section is situated within the Foca Facility Complex, it is still physically separated and functions as an independent unit.

All the necessary permits have been obtained for the prison building. New rulebooks and legislation covering accommodation, rights and obligations of convicts and the special section’s work regime have been adopted.

The training of prison security and educational and correctional officers for the newly-built section is due to be completed soon.

“The training ought to be completed soon. If all of the candidates pass the final mental and physical exam, we shall try to begin the Section’s operations in the first week on June,” Selman said. He pointed out that the conditions met all European standards, adding that this was the first prison of its kind in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

———————————————————————————————–

This text was written as part of a project supported by US citizens through USAID in Bosnia and Herzegovina. BIRN is fully responsible for the content of the text, which does not necessarily reflect the views of USAID, or the US Government.