Little Progress towards Processing War Crimes

Presenting a report to the UN’s Security Council, Brammertz pointed out that very little progress has been made towards finalising the investigation files, which the Hague Prosecution transferred to the Prosecution of Bosnia and Herzegovina, that a significant backlog of cases remains to be prosecuted as part of the National War Crimes Strategy and that the implementation of the European Court of Human Right’s decision has raised significant issues.

“Very little progress has been achieved towards finalizing nine out of 13 cases, which The Hague Prosecution transferred to Bosnia and Herzegovina in the period from 2005 to 2009. I held a meeting with the Chief Prosecutor in Sarajevo in October. I was told that a decision concerning the status of each of those cases would be rendered by the end of this year. I am still awaiting the most up-to-date information,” Brammertz said.

According to his estimates, the implementation of the Strategy was facing difficulties. One of the problems was the fact that measures taken to relieve the bottleneck of cases before the State Court have not yet been matched with essential resources for the entity level courts receiving those cases.

“Besides that, there is no efficient strategy for training local staff to deal with war-crimes cases, which is needed urgently,” the Chief Hague Prosecutor said.

In regard to the implementation of the Strasbourg Court’s decision in Maktouf and Damjanovic cases, he said that the release of 12 convicts to liberty represented a threat to correct finalization of those cases and undermines the public’s trust in the execution of justice.

“The significance of this issue is additionally emphasized by the fact that 40 more convicts have filed appeals with the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina,” Brammertz said.

He said that people in the former Yugoslavia were still waiting for answers about the fate of their loved ones, which could be illustrated, among other things, by the recent discovery of the Tomasica mass grave, where 474 remains have been found. 

Brammertz mentioned that the states in the region had recently concluded co-operation protocols and that regular meetings were taking place, but further reforms were still needed to resolve ongoing coordination problems, especially the legal barriers that remain to extradition.

When it comes to the work of the Hague Tribunal, Brammertz pointed to significant progress towards the conclusion of the remaining three trials.