Work on War Crimes Cases in Zenica Accelerated

Redzo Delic, director of the War Crimes and Organised Crime Department in the Cantonal Prosecutor’s Office in Zenica, said they filed three war crime indictments last year, and another three against four people this year.

“Last year we have been transferred 18 war crimes cases against 44 persons from the Prosecutor’s Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina. These are mostly crimes against civilian population committed in the territory of the Zenica-Doboj Canton,” said Delic.

He said that the Prosecutor’s Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina did nothing in the last five or six years on the cases transferred to them.

“They mostly transferred cases in the phase of the police report, and cases since 2005 or 2006. Almost nothing has been done on these,” explained Delic, emphasising that despite this they managed to file three indictments and stop the investigation against ten people in one case and investigation against seven people in another.

Supervisory Body for the implementation of the Strategy on Processing War Crimes Cases was informed that the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina would transfer to lower instance courts 304 cases against 1,200 people.

“We know for a fact that a certain number of cases would be transferred to our office,” said Delic.

The main problems in the course of investigation, said Delic, are inability to find witnesses because people are displaced, and returnees reluctant to speak about it, as well as the changed perception of the events that occurred 20 years ago.

Due to economic crisis, the Prosecutor’s Office in Zenica won’t get a new building this year either, despite some announcements from the Zenica-Doboj Cantonal Government. As announced by Vesna Kaknjo, chief prosecutor in Zenica, something else would be done to broaden the working space, because they cannot wait any more.

This year, Kaknjo said, the Prosecutor’s Office in Zenica expects to employ two new prosecutors, five experts and typists who will ease the problem of staff shortages.