No Indictments Filed for Two Years

The Trebinje District Prosecution says that this caused by the fact that their “capacities are limited”, adding that an improvement might happen in the upcoming period.
 
“A total of five prosecutors work with the Prosecution. Our personnel and material capacities for dealing with war crimes cases are limited. This has led to the situation as it is today,” says Srdjan Vukanovic, Public Relations Officer of the District Prosecution in Trebinje.
 
Vukanovic says that they have informed the relevant institutions about the current situation, adding that the problem has been recognized by them. According to Vukanovic, at the beginning of the year a memorandum of agreement was signed with the Body for monitoring the implementation of the State Strategy for War-Crimes Processing, which was supported by funds provided by the European Commission.
 
Vukanovic further says that, in February a prosecutor, who is in charge of war-crimes cases only, was appointed and that a six-member team, consisting of expert associates, psychologists and administrative workers, was appointed with the aim of assisting in dealing with those cases.
 
Over the past two years 29 war-crimes cases have been referred from Trebinje to the Prosecution of Bosnia and Herzegovina, BiH, for further processing due to their complexity, while nine cases have been referred from the State Prosecution to Trebinje.
 
“There are 43 active cases, covering war crimes, in the Trebinje Prosecution. It is difficult to speak about deadlines and say how many cases will result in filing of indictments or discontinuing of investigations,” Vukanovic says.