No Arrests Yet After Death Threats to Bosnian Judges

The president of the Bosnian state court, Ranko Debevec, told BIRN that he has still not been informed by the state prosecution that the person or persons who threatened him with death last year have been identified.

Other judges and managers of state-level judicial institutions who received threats at the same time have also not been informed about whether those who threatened them have been identified either.

“I have no information and I still believe and hope that the prosecution and police agencies will find the perpetrators of these crimes. I think it should have been brought to a conclusion and the perpetrators brought to justice long ago,” said Debevec, whose court handles cases of war crimes, terrorism and organised crime.

Debevec said in July 2018 that he received a threatening text message that began with the word ‘fatwa’.

The message accused him of cooperating with the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad and said he had been sentenced to death.

Another series of threats issued in August last year to Debevec and a few other judges and prosecutors accused them of ‘selling’ an acquittal verdict to Bosnian tycoon Fahrudin Radoncic, the head of the Union for a Better Future of Bosnia and Herzegovina party, who was cleared in May 2018 of obstructing justice by ordering witness-tampering in the trial of a major drug trafficker in Kosovo.

Ruzica Jukic, vice-president of Bosnia’s judicial overseer, the High Judicial and Protectorial Council, who received death threats from an unknown phone number in August 2018, said she was sent a written notification by the state prosecution that work on the case was still ongoing.

“I have not received any further notifications and I do not know what they are doing. I don’t think that is right,” Jukic said.

Jadranka Lokmic-Misiraca, another vice-president of the High Judicial and Prosecutorial Council, received a death threat on the same day as Debevec.

Lokmic-Misiraca said she believed the prosecution was doing all it could to find the perpetrators.

“I believe that my colleagues are making and have made every effort during this period of time. I believe in that and I cannot believe that things are different,” she said.