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Serge Brammertz, the chief prosecutor at the Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals, told a meeting of prosecutors from former Yugoslav countries about cooperation in war crime cases in Sarajevo on Wednesday that “too little has been done on regional cooperation in the past three years”.
Brammertz said that some war crimes cases have been taken over from Bosnia and Herzegovina by Serbia and Croatia, when the suspects lived in one of those countries and were unavailable to the Bosnian judiciary.
But he argued that it must be demonstrated to war victims that such takeovers will result in criminal prosecutions.
In 2013, the prosecutors’ offices of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia and Croatia signed protocols enabling the exchange of cases, investigations and case documents in war crime cases.
However, in some cases – such as the case against Bosnian Serb wartime general Novak Djukic in Belgrade, which was taken over from the Bosnian judiciary – hearings have been repeatedly postponed.
Even in cases that have been portrayed as successful, such as trials for Srebrenica murders in Belgrade, there has been criticism of the proceedings, as Serbia has reclassified the charge of genocide as a crime against civilians.
Ruth Wiseman of the British embassy in Sarajevo told the conference that everyone should be ready to maintain dialogue and solve the remaining cases because victims deserve justice and society deserves to see it done in a transparent manner.
“The states’ commitment and progress in criminal prosecution of war crime cases is surely an issue of public interest. We certainly want to ensure improvement in exchange of information. You must work and cooperate to satisfy victims,” Wiseman said.
Ivan Jovanovic of the UN Development Project’s Regional War Crimes Project, said the prosecution of war crimes is both a legal and moral issue.
“The cooperation between prosecutors’ offices is of vital importance. It is of key importance for the media to be involved in monitoring trials and process these topics from victims’ angle,” Jovanovic said.
