Prosecutor Facing Disciplinary Proceedings for Alleged Neglect of Ilijas Case

Disciplinary prosecutor Mirza Hadziomerovic said that for four and a half years (2007-2012), state prosecutor Mirko Lecic failed to act upon a criminal report regarding crimes committed in the village of Cemerno in the municipality of Ilijas, which “significantly slowed down the work on that investigation.”

“During the specified period of time the defendant failed to familiarize himself with the criminal report in detail and refer the case to another team, which had territorial competence in this case. Considering the fact that these are simple actions and that the case refers to the murder of 33 people, the disciplinary prosecutor’s office believes this represents professional negligence and therefore proposes that the court hand down a disciplinary measure,” Hadziomerovic said.

In his closing statement, state prosecutor Mirko Lecic said it wasn’t true that he hadn’t familiarized himself with the content of the criminal report, which indicated that the Cemerno case be assigned to another team. He said he analyzed all of the cases assigned to him during the first half of 2010.

“In the specified period I was assigned 44 investigations against identified perpetrators and dealt with a total of 106 cases. The list of completed cases shows that I filed seven indictments in the period covered by the charges against me. Some of those indictments were very complex, so the allegation that I did not perform my job in a timely manner is unfounded,” Lecic said.

He also said he submitted the Cemerno investigation file to the court clerk’s office back in 2010 in order for it to be filed into an electronic database of cases. He said he expected the case to be assigned to the team dealing with the municipality of Ilijas.

“A mistake was obviously made. When I realized the case was still at the court clerk’s office in 2012, I issued another decision for the case to be assigned to another team,” Lecic said.

The commission of the High Judicial and Prosecutorial Council will render its decision regarding the disciplinary suit within the next two weeks, by November 4, 2015.

Prior to the presentation of closing statements, Lecic’s former expert associate, Omer Sabanovic, testified in Lecic’s defense. Sabanovic said he was involved in analyzing all ongoing cases in 2010.

“At that time prosecutor Lecic and I familiarized ourselves with the content of all criminal reports in detail, including the one referring to Cemerno…As we indicated in that analysis, the investigation was assigned to us by mistake, because we covered the Central Bosnia area, while the investigation should have obviously been assigned to team number 4,” Sabanovic said.

Sabanovic also said Lecic conveyed to him that he had asked Vesna Budimir, the former chief of the War Crimes Section of the Prosecution of Bosnia and Herzegovina, to transfer the case to another team.