New War Crimes Investigations in Brcko
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According to Chief Prosecutor Zekerija Mujkanovic, indictments can still not be filed in these cases due to the lack of sufficiently strong evidence that would ensure proving guilt for war crimes.
For this reason, Mujkanovic expects the institutions, NGOs and general public to demonstrate a higher level of readiness to testify and help in the collection of evidence.
“One war crimes indictment was filed and prosecutorial decisions rendered in war crimes cases during the course of last year. In fact, last year we discontinued investigations against nine people in four cases and completed our part of the process in two cases, which we referred to the Prosecution of Bosnia and Herzegovina for further processing,” Mujkanovic said.
The Chief Prosecutor in Brcko says that people should be encouraged to testify, as it would lead to the speeding up of the investigations.
“At present people are not really willing to testify for some reasons. In practice it even happened that even those, who were subjected to various types of torture and abuse, were not willing to testify. Key witnesses, who can help us, usually belong to the same ethnic groups as war-crimes perpetrators and witnesses, who live in those areas,” Mujkanovic explains.
He says that filing of indictments for murders committed in Brcko and Boderiste and Bukvik villages, as well as the destruction of a bridge over River Sava, is expected soon.
According to Mujkanovic, the solving of war-crimes cases has been a long-lasting priority for the Brcko Prosecution. He hopes that it will be possible to respect the deadlines set in the Strategy for Processing of War Crimes, which was adopted by the Council of Ministers of Bosnia and Herzegovina in last 2008.
“The Strategy indicates that the most complex cases should be solved within the deadline of seven years from the Strategy adoption date. All other cases should be completed in 15 years. I believe that the District Prosecution will be able to respect these deadlines and file indictments, if such possibility exists, or render other prosecutorial decisions in case there is no sufficient evidence,” Mujkanovic concluded.
