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The Prosecution wrote that, between 2004 and 2022, it registered a total of 814 cases referred by the Prosecution of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, ICTY.
The State Prosecution said a decision had been made to discontinue investigations in more than 250 cases in category “A”. This is how the ICTY labelled cases in which it suspected that the persons had committed grave violations of international humanitarian law.
The president of the Association of Victims and Witnesses of Genocide, Murat Tahirovic, told BIRN BiH, that this was the first time the State Prosecution had come up with concrete data about the “A” list.
“This confirms what we said before, that investigations against more than 300 people had eventually been discontinued and that has unfortunately proved true. Those are lost cases, and it would be good to know the names … so we can see who those people are,” he said.
Murat Tahirovic. Photo: BIRN BiH
In 1996, the Hague Prosecution launched a programme, “Rules of the Road”, which, among other things, obliged local prosecutors to submit case files to the Hague for an independent review of all local war crimes cases.
As written on the ICTY website, applying international standards, the Prosecution reviewed more than 1,400 case files referring to nearly 5,000 suspects and gave their opinion on whether sufficient evidence had been collected for further action in them.
A positive opinion was given for the criminal prosecution of 848 people. In its announcement the Prosecution explained that, through a review of its own registry and exchange of data with the Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals, MICT, the successor of the ICTY, as well as checks with the entity and Brcko District Prosecutions, they determined that some category “A” people had been assigned that category multiple times, so the final number was 814.
They also explained that this referred to the total of 30 individuals, some of whom were registered both under their name and nickname, or registered twice under different numbers, while additional checks are being performed on four individuals.
According to a spreadsheet made by the State Prosecution about category “A” persons, 79 people have been sentenced in the second instance till now. Out of the 79, 63 verdicts were convictions and 16 were for release.
The number of indictments filed against those persons was 38. The Prosecution said that seven of the indictments referred to Serbia, six to Croatia and one to Montenegro. There are 13 indictments against unavailable persons.
One indictment is at a standstill due to a medical condition, nine have been referred to other prosecutions in Bosnia while in the case of one indictment the main trial is about to be scheduled.
Among other things, the table shows that indictments against two persons were rejected, while proceedings against six defendants were discontinued, including five due to the death of the defendants and one due to medical condition.
The Prosecution solved the status of 118 people by discontinuing the investigations, while the status of 50 individuals was solved by not conducting investigations against them.
Acting chief State Prosecutor Milanko Kajganic told BIRN BiH that the Prosecution has not considered publishing the names as they have to take account of protection of personal and confidential data of persons against whom investigations have been discontinued.
Milanko Kajganic, Acting Chief Prosecutor of the Prosecutor’s Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Photo: BIRN.
“We are planning to provide the names of all people to a supervisory body, once it has been formed, and we shall submit it to the permanent commission for the efficiency of the prosecution. If there are queries or insistence, we shall consult the Agency for Protection of Personal Data.
“As far as the Prosecution is concerned, we have absolutely no problem publishing the names. However, we must make sure not to violate the rights of concrete individuals by such actions,” he said.
According to the table, the State Prosecution is currently conducting investigations against 93 people, while 57 are at the reporting stage.
It said that 62 cases against 150 people in category “A” are being worked on. These cases are considered priority in accordance with provisions of the Revised National Strategy on Processing War Crimes Cases and Annex B, as well as the Mandatory Instruction by the chief prosecutor of the State Prosecution.
The Prosecution also published a spreadsheet of cases in category “A” which were referred from the Prosecution to entity and Brcko District prosecutions, covering 342 people.
The status of 135 of these individuals has been solved by discontinuing the investigations, while a decision has been made not to conduct an investigation against four people.
According to the table, 155 people have been sentenced in the second instance. There were 108 convictions, including one in Croatia, one in which the Prosecution gave up on the indictment in the repeated procedure and one refusal of sentence. There were 44 verdicts of release, while in one case the decision is being checked.
According to the spreadsheet, indictments were filed against 12 individuals, five of which were referred to Serbia and four to Croatia. As reported, one person is unavailable, while the Court discontinued proceedings against one more person due to death, and one indictment was confirmed in 2021.
Both tables show nine persons died before their processing.
Tahirovic considered it concerning that the investigation was either discontinued or not conducted at all against more than 300 people.
“That is a large number out of a total of 814 people. If we consider that the investigation against 307 people was either discontinued or not conducted at all, that makes around 40 per cent of the total number in category ‘A’, which is somewhat worrisome,” he said.
Over many years the OSCE Mission to Bosnia and associations of victims have called on the State Prosecution to publish data on prosecution of these cases. In her progress report on “Improving War Crimes Processing at the State Level in Bosnia and Herzegovina” by 2020 British judge Joanna Korner, the former senior prosecutor of the ICTY, called on the then-chief state prosecutor Gordana Tadic to collect information, share it with public and regularly report on progress made.
Tahirovic said that he first learnt about the statistical data from the media, pointing out that the Association had sought the data from the Prosecution several times but hadn’t received it.
“We don’t have some laudable results, but it is laudable that the Prosecution has come up with some concrete figures,” he said.
