Analysis Archives

Witnesses at the Hague retrial of former state security officials Jovica Stanisic and Franko Simatovic, which offers the last chance to assess the role of Serbian units in the wars in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia, often testify behind closed doors.

Defamation lawsuits against journalists are being increasingly used as a censorship tool in Bosnia, experts say, warning that judges’ lack of expertise on defamation laws is leading to bad verdicts.

Bratislav Zivkovic has made no secret of his ties to Russian-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine, but prosecutors in Serbia dropped an investigation against him.

In Bosnia’s Serb-dominated Republika Srpska, where reservist policemen committed war crimes and persecuted non-Serbs in the 1990s, the authorities plan to set up a new reservist force, sparking fears among war victims.

Among those gathered at the military cemetery on a hill above the Bosnian town of Visegrad, two Russians stood out. Rubbing shoulders with Bosnian Serb dignitaries, the pair was there to salute the hundreds of Russians who fought alongside Bosnian Serb forces during the 1992-95 Bosnian war. Viktor Zaplatin and Aleksandar Kravchenko were both veterans […]

Thousands of Bosnians who suffered in wartime detention camps still receive no assistance from the authorities because the country’s state-level law on torture victims is being obstructed by an ethnically-based political dispute.

The Belgian government has announced plans to criminalise denial of the Srebrenica genocide, but similar legislation is not likely to find political support in Bosnia and Herzegovina, where the massacres happened, or in Serbia.

Trials in Bosnia of several major defendants are being postponed almost indefinitely because one or other defendant is ill – raising questions about why the cases are not being separated.

The government of the Sarajevo Canton allocated 358,000 euros in its 2019 budget to provide legal assistance to ex-soldiers and police officers - almost all of them Bosniaks - who have been charged with war crimes, BIRN has learned.

Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik claims the final verdict in Radovan Karadzic’s trial will be unfair, while Bosniak war victims’ groups want a tougher sentence - suggesting that the ruling will only perpetuate ethnic divides in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Analysis

Closed Hearings at Serbian Security Chiefs’ Trial Cause Mistrust

Rise in Bosnian Defamation Cases Raises Censorship Fears

Serbian Nationalist Flaunts Freedom with Ukraine Call to Arms

Bosnian Serb Plan for New Police Force Revives Wartime Fears

Ukraine War Veterans Bind Russia and Bosnian Serbs

Abandoned by the State: Bosnia’s Wartime Torture Victims

Bosnia, Serbia Unlikely to Copy Belgium’s Genocide Denial Law

Sickness Delays Justice in Bosnian War Crimes Trials

Sarajevo to Pay €358,000 for War Crime Suspects’ Defence

Karadzic Verdict Will Reinforce Ethnic Divisions, Analysts Predict

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