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The state prosecution told BIRN that, during 2025, it had filed a total of 11 indictments charging 25 individuals, which it said meant that victims’ relatives were finally seeing cases against suspects make progress.
“It should be borne in mind that indictments were raised in some cases in which the families of the victims had waited for a long time for the prosecution of those who were responsible for the war crimes,” it stated.
Srebrenica charges
At the end of the year, the prosecution filed two separate indictments related to the 1995 Srebrenica genocide, in both cases charging members of the Zvornik Brigade of the Bosnian Serb Army.
The first one charged Zoran Simanic, nicknamed Zajdo, and Dragan Jovic, nicknamed Mujo, with aiding the genocide of Bosniaks from Srebrenica by participating in the shooting of prisoners.
The second Srebrenica indictment charged Dragan Jevtic, Slavko Bogicevic, nicknamed Brko, and Damjan Lazarevic with participating in the preparing of locations for mass executions, as well as in securing machinery and troops for the burial of the bodies.
A separate indictment charged Radislav Krstic, a senior wartime Bosnian Serb Army officer – who the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, ICTY, already convicted of aiding the genocide in Srebrenica – with other crimes.
The former commander of the Second Romanija Motorised Brigade of the Bosnian Serb Army was now indicted for committing war crimes in September 1992 in the village of Novoseoci, near Sokolac. As he is already serving a 35-year prison sentence in Estonia, it is unclear how a new trial for him can be held.
In addition to these indictments, the state prosecution charged Nesib Talic, Jusuf Karalic, Nasid Delalic and Sabahudin Sarajlic, former members of the military security and military police in the 7th Muslim Brigade of the Bosnian Army, with war crimes against Serb and Croat civilians detained at the Music School in Zenica in 1993.
Meanwhile, Sead Arnautovic and Samir Mehinovic were charged with crimes against prisoners-of-war in the Doboj area during 1992. Mensud Kelestura and Hazim Jasarevic were charged with involvement in an attack in Vitez in June 1993, when eight Croat children were killed and five others wounded.
An indictment charged Mirsad Sestic with war crimes against the civilian population, including wounded and sick people, in the Zepce area in 1993. Among other charges, he is accused of using ‘human shields’ that included a baby, and of abusing journalists.
Enes Gurda and Nihad Camdzic-Brcaninovic, nicknamed Mrakan, were charged with inhumane treatment of Serb civilians detained in the Zivinice area in 1992. Gurda was charged as a security officer of the Territorial Defence of Zivinice, and Camdzic-Brcaninovic as a member of the Military Police of the Territorial Defence of Zivinice.
An indictment charged six individuals over crimes against humanity in the village of Biljani near Kljuc in the summer of 1992. Braco Maric, Dragan Vukic, nicknamed Rosin, Ranko Samardzija, Savo Jokic, Miso Adamovic and Milorad Kaurin, nicknamed Karlo, are accused of killing several dozen people and committing inhumane acts against illegally detained civilians.
Splitting of indictments questioned
Azra Miletic. Photo: Detektor
The two indictments for aiding the genocide in Srebrenica involve former members of the Bosnian Serb Army’s Zvornik Brigade and executions at a gravel pit on the banks of the River Drina in the settlement of Kovluk, amongst other crimes.
The practice of splitting up indictments has drawn criticism from legal experts, including British judge Joanna Korner.
The state prosecution, however, insists that this is not a case of splitting up indictments unnecessarily.
It noted that, for the first time in Bosnian domestic justice, officials of the army engineering brigades responsible for the burial and later hiding the remains of more than 4,000 people in 24 secondary mass graves have been indicted.
“Considering that multiple indictments involve the suffering of a large number of victims, and the indictments cover multiple persons for war crimes in different areas in Bosnia and Herzegovina, there can be no talk of any ‘splitting’ of indictments,” the prosecution said
Tahirovic was satisfied with the filing of these two different indictments – but added that it could also be a case of the prosecution not meeting its quota, if it merged them.
“Whether the prosecution had to separate them or not, whether this is fulfilling the quota, what is behind it all, I don’t know. But I think both indictments are good,” he said.
Miletic said that everything depends on how connected the events were.
“When the events are connected, it’s a bit inconvenient because you already had previous proceedings involving the same witnesses. I don’t know why it couldn’t have been included in earlier indictments,” she said, adding that multiple indictments are also uneconomical.
The OSCE Mission to Bosnia and Herzegovina in its reports has called for the fragmentation of indictments without good reason to stop.
Prosecuting the already convicted
Radislav Krstic. Photo: EPA/PAUL VREEKER
The fresh Krstic indictment has also raised eyebrows among legal experts, given that he was already sentenced to 35 years in prison by the ICTY for aiding and abetting the genocide in Srebrenica.
He is not the only person who has been convicted and is serving a sentence, against whom the prosecution has filed fresh charges.
In recent years, the prosecution has also indicted Milan Lukic, already convicted by the ICTY for crimes against train passengers kidnapped in February 1993 at Strpci station. Lukic was previously sentenced to life imprisonment for wartime crimes in Visegrad. Dragoljub Kunarac, who was sentenced to 28 years in jail by the ICTY for crimes against humanity in the Foca area, was also indicted again by the Bosnian state prosecution.
Judge Miletic believes that filing such new indictments is pointless, wondering how the Krstic trial will be conducted, considering he is in jail outside the country.
“I don’t see how meaningful it is now, when we already have a man sentenced to a long prison term for the most serious crimes. I don’t know what they didn’t know about him before. The Hague must have investigated everything connected to him,” Miletic said.
In her 2020 report, Judge Joanna Korner criticised the practice of filing indictments against people who have already been convicted and sentenced. “The resources available make it impossible to prosecute all persons who have committed crimes,” Korner pointed out.
The OSCE Mission to Bosnia has also admonished the state prosecution for this practice.
“Indictments should not be filed against defendants who have already been convicted of war crimes in previous proceedings, unless the indictment charges them with command responsibility for crimes of such magnitude that the public interest demands that they be held accountable and that the imposed criminal sanction will extend the prison sentence to which they have already been sentenced,” it argued.