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Former camp detainees have called on courts in Bosnia to stop ordering victims to pay judicial costs.
Hasan Celikovic, a former detainee in the Bosnian Serb-run camp at Batkovic near Bijeljina, told BIRN that in November a court had ordered part of his property to be impounded because he could not pay the court costs.
“I was a detainee in Batkovic and now I am a detainee in my own house. It is as if I did not have enough torture for 17 months during the war… I have lost my dignity,” Celikovic said.
The head of the Association of former camp detainees in Bosnia, Jasmin Meskovic, said the courts in the Bosnian Serb-dominated entity, Republika Srpska, routinely order former camp victims to pay judicial fees of 1,000 to 5,000 euros.
“Members of our association don’t know what to do, they think of suicide and fight with their families. They wonder why they even survived the torture in the war,” she said.
As an example, Meskovic listed the case of a former camp inmate from Kozarac near Prijedor who has already paid nearly 5,000 euros in judicial costs.
Meskovic said that more than 30,000 lawsuits by former camp inmates have been filed in Bosnian courts. “If all of them are ordered to pay costs of at least 1,500 euros, that is 45 million euro, which the Republika Srpska wants to shamefully get from camp survivors,” Meskovic said.
Sabrija Delic survived seven months in the Luke and Batkovic camps in the north of Bosnia. After the war he filed a lawsuit against Republika Srpska. He won more than 15,000 euros but when he asked for the money he was told the Republika Srpska wanted the case reopened.
Nedzla Sehic, a Bosnian lawyer representing former camp victims, said that the law should be amended so victims of war crimes are freed from paying judicial costs. “Until that happens, they have no right of legal remedy,” Sehic said.
The association of former camp detainees in Bosnia said it had spoken to all domestic and international institutions in Bosnia, and had filed objections with the European Court for Human Rights.
