LOCAL PRESS

Vucic criticizes Kosovo Serb politicians over disunity (Politika)

Firm unity of Serb politicians in Kosovo and Metohija is an imperative and condition of national survival of the Serbs in the southern Serbian province, it was concluded at the meeting of Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic and Kosovo Serb political representatives in Belgrade. At the meeting at the Serbia Palace, which lasted around two hours, it was unilaterally agreed that Aleksandar Jablanovic will not be any further at the post of the president of the Serb (Srpska) List. This change will be registered in all Pristina institutions, while this duty will be performed by the Serb List caucus whip Slavko Simic, member of the Movement of Socialists. The meeting was conducted by Prime Minister Vucic, who criticized the mayors of ten Serb majority municipalities and deputies in the provincial assembly over disunity. Politika learns that Vucic referred to the Kosovo political divisions at the meeting that was closed for public. “I cannot believe that you in Kosovo are quarrelling, while the Albanians are doing everything to take from us monasteries and churches. I am reading in the media what you are doing to each other. Is it possible that it has occurred to someone to request the dismissal of all three Serb ministers in the Kosovo government and to say that I stand behind this? Instead of working all together towards as many as Serbs returning to their homes, some people think that they are most important and are doing everything for as many Serbs to leave Kosovo and Metohija,” one participant of the meeting conveyed Vucic’s words. Vucic also said that the Head of the Office for Kosovo and Metohija Marko Djuric will have his support as long as he is the Prime Minister. Apart from the diplomatic battle f or Serbian national monuments, Vucic also announced that the Community of Serb Municipalities will be established and that everything must be done to open new jobs in Kosovo. He especially referred to the misuse of spending funds in some municipalities paid from the republican budget for various investments.    

Collecting evidence on crimes (Novosti)

The Serbian parliamentary Committee for Kosovo and Metohija has formed a working group that will collect facts and evidence for shedding light of crimes against Serbs and other national communities in Kosovo and Metohija. The Chairman of the group will be Milovan Drecun, who is also the Chairman of the Committee for Kosovo and Metohija. They will submit collected facts and evidence, through the War Crimes Prosecution, to the Special War Crimes in Kosovo and Metohija. “This will be an addition to the activities undertaken by the competent bodies. All information that we receive from citizens, associations, witnesses, and which speak of crimes against not only Serbs but also Romas and Albanians, and which were covered up, we will forward to the Prosecution so these cases would be moved from a standstill.,” Drecun told Novosti. Apart from the Committee members, the working group also includes Dragoljub Stankovic, Deputy War Crimes Prosecutor, Dejan Marinkovic, the Head of the Service for uncovering war crimes in the Criminal Police Directorate, Veljko Odalovic, the Chairman of the Commission for Missing Persons, Vesna Boskovic, this Commission’s Advisor, and Igor Popovic, the Head of the judiciary in the Office for Kosovo and Metohija.

Instead of attending the Book Fair, he is at home, beaten (Politika,by Zivojin Rakocevic)

Sunday, yesterday, around noon, the village of Gornji Kusac, and there is nearly no one on the streets. Only in the yard of the Petrovic family there is a crowd. Seventeen-year-old Velibor Petrovic with a band around his head and over his right eye, smiles as much as he can. He was severely beaten yesterday in the attack of Albanian boys on a group of Serb boys that was returning from the football field. “First they attacked our friends, and then we returned. One attacked me with a knife, I pushed him back, and then they hit me with a piece of wood, and I lost my consciousness. When I woke up, I started running,” the boy says. He was immediately transferred to the Gracanica hospital, and then to Kosovska Mitrovica where they took care of his injuries. His friends, ten of them, passed with minor injuries. “What can I say; we got a little relaxed, thinking the worst passed. Then, shock,” his father Zoran Petrovic says, getting ready to take Velibor to the hospital located in the Serb village of Silovo. He has pain in the head and jaw, while his mother cannot talk as she is under sedation. Velibor is an excellent student at the “Stevan Hristic” Music School in the neighboring village of Stanisor and it has 500 students. His teacher, who is also the Director of the school, Sasa Milosevic came to visit him. “We constantly have these incidents at the entrance of the village, but we get relaxed sometimes. They are constantly exerting pressure, this is a problematic group, and they say they are children. This is not true, what kind of children are they? Small children with knives? Velibor is an excellent student; he was supposed to have a performance with the students of our school at the Book Fair in Belgrade. He was preparing and could hardly wait to go, I really feel sorry for him, but what can we do,” says Milosevic, who established one large and serious institution in this region, where there are around 40,000 Serbs living in the surrounding villages. Nevertheless, each attack deeply disturbs, first the people, and then the fragile institutions expelled from the towns. This genuine uncertainty, as well as the ruination of decentralized Serb municipalities according to the Kosovo system, is fundamentally shaking the life of Serb residents. The police, dominantly Albanian, had never assumed full responsibility nor have the Serbs realized their rights and law intended position and influence in it. That is why the statement by the Kosovo Police spokesperson Ismet Hashani, which was quoted by all Serbian media, on how the fight between two groups of boys occurred, sounds as if the incident occurred in London or Belgrade. This trained faceless statement deeply insults the Serbs in this region, but they defend themselves with the sentence: “I can, it is their time”. This same police didn’t take a statement from either Velibor or his father Zoran until late last night. “We didn’t take a statement because, according to our information, he is in the hospital in Mitrovica,” spokesperson Hashani told RTV Puls in Silovo. He reiterated that the motives of the fight are unknown and that one minor Albanian was arrested.

Up until 1999, Gornji Kusac was a Serb village with around 2,000 residents and it had ten Albanian houses in the plains below the village towards Gnjilane. Today, a whole new settlement sprang up here with modern houses, with Albanians settling here, mostly those from Bujanovac and Presevo.

Ker-Lindsay: Expected move by Macedonia and Montenegro (Danas)

“Even though Belgrade is undoubtedly angry over the decision by Montenegro and Macedonia to vote for the recommendation for Kosovo’s membership in the UNESCO Executive Council, I think that no external observer has had serious expectations that they would do differently. I am more surprised with the fact that it seems that people in Serbia had any kind of hope that they would not support Pristina’s aspiration,” James Ker-Lindsay, a senior research fellow on the politics of South-East Europe at the London School of Economics, comments for Danas the impact of such a move by Podgorica and Skopje on the future relations with Belgrade. Ker-Lindsay notes that in case of Macedonia there had never been a chance for this state to abstain from voting, “let alone to vote against”. “Having in mind the large Albanian community, every decision that would not imply full support to Kosovo’s candidacy for membership would potentially cause significant internal-political tensions. This reason alone is sufficient for Serbia never to expect that Macedonia will do anything different,” he says. Regarding Montenegro’s decision, he points out that it is understandable why the people in Serbia perhaps expected more solidarity “bearing in mind the much closer cultural and ethnic links between the two countries”. “The Serbian campaign is based on the fact that Kosovo cannot protect the largely symbolic monasteries and churches. Still, in this case too, there has been no realistic chance for Podgorica to vote against or to simply abstain from voting. Foreign relations are the key here. Prime Minister Djukanovic has worked hard to build ties with the West over the past years. The decision to recognize Kosovo represented the first evidence for this, and then we saw further steps in the same direction, such as the introduction of sanctions against Russia, despite the obvious fury by Moscow,” concludes the British expert for the Balkans.

Black: Stop the Mladic trial until the cause of death of Dunjic is determined (Novosti)

Canadian lawyer in criminal cases Christopher Black believes that the trial of General Ratko Mladic in The Hague must be stopped until the exact cause of death of his key witness, Serbian pathologist Dusan Dunjic, is determined. Regarding the death of Dunjic, who was supposed to testify in the defense of General Ratko Mladic before the Hague Tribunal, Black said, that urgent formation of an independent international commission is needed, because the circumstances of Dunjic’s death are to say the least debatable. Black, who is considered to be one of the world’s most respected lawyers when it comes to war and mass crimes, told Novosti that if the first results of Dunjic’s autopsy show something suspicious, the authorities in Serbia should immediately engage. He wonders, what the Witness Protection Unit in The Hague was doing, which was supposed to take care of Dunjic, and added that the unit had protocols what to do if the witness gets sick in the witness room. Black said that this case reminded him of the situation when the Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic died in his cell, and was left to lie unattended seven to eight hours without pathologist reviewing him, and that later two substances of drugs were found in his body, which he was not allowed to use. “Which substances haven’t been found, as they have degraded in the body, until the pathological review was done, may be an important issue in the case of death of Professor Dunjic too,” added Black, who was forbidden to defend Mladic by the Hague tribunal, because “he doesn’t respect the court”. Black said that the Mladic family was under pressure by the Tribunal even before, and that they were threatened. In particular, when they tried to engage the Russian Professor Aleksandr Mezayev and himself in Mladic’s defense team, said Black.

REGIONAL PRESS

B&H’s current government won’t consider Kosovo recognition (Nezavisne novine)

B&H has not recognized Kosovo and the issue will not be opened and treated during the current government’s mandate, said B&H Foreign Minister Igor Crnadak, who also denied that in the coming period one of the topics on the agenda of the Council of Ministers would be abolition of visas for citizens of Kosovo. “B&H wants to do everything to facilitate movement of citizens, goods, and services in order to enable as normal as possible functioning, but the abolition of visas will not be discussed. The EU has not canceled visas for citizens of Kosovo,” said Crnadak, report Nezavisne novine. A business forum “B&H-Kosovo” was held “for the first time since 2008 when that state introduced visas for citizens of Kosovo” and heard that B&H’s economy was “losing a million euros a day because of the visa regime”. Pristina also introduced visas for B&H citizens as a “reciprocal measure” in late 2013. The process is complicated and so citizens who reside in Kosovo must go to Skopje to apply for visas, while citizens of B&H travel to Tirana or Zagreb. The Foreign Ministry in Sarajevo said that it issued 612 visas to citizens from Kosovo and that no application had been denied.

House of Representatives of FB&H parliament adopted Law on Civil Service (Novo vrijeme)

Delegates of the House of Representatives of the Parliament of FB&H adopted the Draft Law on amendments to the Law on Civil Service by urgent procedure at yesterday’s extraordinary session. The Law was supported by 59 delegates, while 22 delegates were against, without abstentions. Minister of Justice of FB&H Mato Jozic introduced the delegates to the fact that the government did not accept approximately 40 amendments to the law proposed by the caucuses or delegates in the House of Representatives of the Parliament of FB&H during the session. Afterwards, the delegates asserted over each submitted amendment, but neither then were they adopted. It was earlier pointed out that the mentioned law should be passed with the aim of reorganizing public administration in FB&H, i.e. that the civil service is maid more rational and efficient, which is in accordance with the Reform Agenda for the period from 2015 to 2018. The law introduces a provision stipulating that the leading civil servants, except for advisors, in bodies of civil service are hired through a public competition conducted by the body of civil service that employs the servant.

No coexistence in so-called multiethnic Sarajevo (Srna)

The President of the RS Association of Prison Camp Detainees Branislav Dukic has said that everything that happened in the last war shows that there is neither coexistence nor reconciliation in the so-called multi-ethnic Sarajevo. “Even nowadays, there is no coexistence in the so-called multi-ethnic Sarajevo, the city, which more than 156,000 Serbs lived in before the 1991 Census, and more than 3,300 Serbs, mainly civilians, were killed during the war in more than 126 prison camps. The above mentioned indicates that there is no state of Bosnia and Herzegovina, no co-existence and no reconciliation,” stressed Dukic. He told Srna that everything what the Bosniaks people do is – topsy-turvy. Once they realize they rush into trouble, they try in many ways to ingratiate themselves with internationals, especially the United States, which is not what it used to be, in order to create a state for them. “It is enough with their hypocrisy, which the attention no longer needs to be paid to,” said Dukic. The President of the Committee of the Families of Missing Civilians of the Sarajevo-Romanija Region, Milka Kokot, believes that Serbs should mark the sufferings of their fellow-citizens in Kazani, not those who killed them. “The Serbs should mark this day. As far as I know, not a single Serb dares to go to Kazani. I would not dare to go on my own there to light a candle for the killed ones,” Kokot told Srna. Kokot has pointed out how lousy work on finding the remains of missing Serbs in the recent war is performed by the B&H Prosecutor’s Office and the B&H Missing Persons Institute. “This is the ultimate outrage because nobody does anything and nobody cares. The ball is shifted from one person to another, hence there is no result,” said Kokot. Numerous Serb civilians, mainly Sarajevo citizens, were killed in the Kazani site on Mt. Trebevic. Remains of 29 persons were removed from the pit in Kazani after the war, while the number of the killed ones has never been officially determined. During raids from 1991 to 1993, members of the Army of B&H were capturing Serbs in the Sarajevo streets and homes, taking them to dig trenches on Mt. Trebevic, where the cave Kazani, which they were thrown into, is located. Fourteen members of the Army of B&H were sentenced from 10 months to six years for crimes committed in Kazani in 1994, and many believe that some murderers are still at large. According to the RS Association of Prison Camp Detainees, 8,800 Serbs were killed in Sarajevo during the war. According to the RS Association of Prison Camp Detainees, there were 126 prison camps for Serbs in Sarajevo during the war. According to the 1991 Census, more than 156,000 Serbs used to live in Sarajevo. Nowadays, not more than 6,000 Serbs live there.

B&H prosecutor’s office does not want to investigate crimes committed in Kazani (Srna)

The Head of the Research Centre of War and War Crimes Milorad Kojic is of the opinion that it is disturbing that the B&H Prosecutor’s Office, despite extensive evidence, failed to open the case of war crimes against Serbs in the Kazani site, near Sarajevo. Kojic has told Srna that this is about a horrific crime committed by members of the 10th, later the 110th Mountain Brigade of the First Corps of the so-called Army of B&H, who were arresting Serbs in period from 1992 to 1993 in the Sarajevo streets or in their homes and taking them to the Mt. Trebevic, the site of Kazani, where they were ritually killed. “Kazani is a natural cave, in which the Muslim soldiers were throwing bodies of Serbs, who had been previously tortured and brutally killed, usually slaughtered. In order to destroy the bodies and the evidence of their crimes, they were putting lime and old tires in the pit, and burning them afterwards,” said Kojic. With regard to the fact that the bodies were destroyed and that terrain is very rough, Kojic points out that the exact number of the Serbs killed in Kazani has not been determined. Kojic has stressed that Alija Izetbegovic, Haris Silajdzic and Biserka Turkovic, who was later B&H ambassador in Zagreb, visited on several occasions the brigade that committed crimes in this location. “There are numerous statements given by witnesses of crimes, committed by this Brigade, against Serbs in Sarajevo whose bodies were thrown in the Kazani cave. Names of both offenders and those who ordered it are known, but to date the Cantonal Court in Sarajevo initiated court proceedings only against Samir Bejtic, against whom the FB&H Supreme Court again revoked the acquitting judgment in July this year,” said Kojic. According to Kojic, it is clear in this case that the B&H Prosecutor’s Office does not want to initiate a story about the sufferings of Serbs in Sarajevo, which is obviously a task given by the Bosniak politicians. “It is exactly that the Bosniak politicians refuse to show that the Serbs in Sarajevo were the subject of war crimes and that they were killed in such a way, taken from the streets or their homes. The worst is that it was about the civilian population,” said Kojic. He added that the judicial institutions have sufficient evidence to prosecute persons, including numerous documents on autopsies and identifications that have been made so far. “More evidence showing that there are more bodies of Sarajevo Serbs on this site could be reached by investigating and initiating such proceedings,” said Kojic.

Mladen Ivanic to step down as PDP leader (Bosna danas)

Mladen Ivanic, one of the most prominent B&H politicians, has confirmed he will step down as a leader of PDP party. At yesterday’s press conference he said he will not run for the president at the party’s Election Assembly scheduled for November 28. He added he will probably remain honorary party president. “I’m sure we need new people in politics. As an honorary president, I will still be engaged in politics and I will be in a position to do even more on the affirmation of PDP,” Ivanic said. Speaking about recent conclusions by the RS Assembly, he said they are unacceptable and that Alliance for Changes (block to which PDP belongs) will respond appropriately. He added that “it is not the task of the people to protest,” but that he cannot rule out that option.

INTERNATIONAL PRESS

Serbia interested in weapons supplies from Russia — PM (TASS, 26 October 2015)

Serbia will consider purchase of Russian combat helicopters, missile defense

BELGRADE Serbia’s Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic said on Sunday weapons supplies will be one of the topics for discussion during his visit to Russia due to take place next week.

“When we manufacture the Nora howitzer we need Kamaz frames that are capable of carrying more than 35 tonnes, and this is one of the grounds for talks with the Russians. Second topic is the artillery gun 242 we install on the Lazar armoured vehicle,” he told journalists. According to Vucic, his country has already ordered two transport helicopters from Russia. “Now we will have to and we have already begun to look at buying combat helicopters, because some of our neighbours have already received 16 Kiowa helicopters,” he said [The US Congress approved supplies of 16 such helicopters to Croatia this year – TASS]. “We have to think about response in terms of ballistic missiles, though we seek no conflicts anywhere, with anyone ever. But we are simply to be prepared and are to know that Serbia has relevant forces for anyone who might think Serbia is an easy game,” the Serbian prime minister stressed. He said Serbia was keeping a close eye on what was going on in neighbouring countries and “cannot allow any violation of the balance of forces in the region.” Although “Serbia is a small country and a small nation,” it will always have as much means of defense as necessary, “so that no one could ever think of using force against Serbia,” Vucic said, adding that his country’s government was tightly working on that matter.

Serbia getting closer to economic recovery: PM (Xinhua, 26 October 2015)

BELGRADE — Serbian PM Aleksandar Vucic said on Sunday that Serbian reforms are going as planned and it is becoming one of the most respectable countries in South East Europe. Vucic made this remark on the occasion of one year and half since the current government was formed. Vucic said at a press conference that Serbia reversed the trend of economic downfall, prevented bankruptcy, and achieved political stability and has shown good cooperation with other countries of the region. “Serbia managed to maintain stability despite circumstances in the region, and today it is a financially stable and serious country,” he noted, adding that government in the past period was faced with heavy floods, migrant crisis, and attempts of Serbia’s southern province Kosovo to join the UNESCO. Vucic said that despite all this, Serbia finally managed to recover from economic crisis and that the expected deficit this year might revolve around 3 percent of GDP, although International Monetary Fund predicted it to be 5.5 percent. He estimated that the growth of GDP will be between 0.7 and 1 percent by the end of the year, and that citizens will gradually start to feel the increase of living standard in the years to come.

Serbia, Croatia agree to speed up migrant flow (AP, by Radul Radovanovic, 23 October 2015)

BAJAKOVO, Croatia — Shocked into action, Serbia and Croatia agreed Friday to increase the flow of asylum-seekers over their border after thousands were forced to spend a muddy night out in the open in near-freezing temperatures. The two nations’ interior ministers said they will start shipping migrants by train directly from Serbia to Croatia so they won’t have to cross on foot, often trekking kilometers (miles) in the rain and cold weather. “We have agreed to stop this torture,” said Croatian Interior Minister Ranko Ostojic. “There will be no more rain and snow, they will go directly from camp to camp.” The surge is showing no signs of abating. The International Office for Migration says Greece over the last week experienced the largest single weekly influx of migrants this year, an average of 9,600 people per day compared to between 4,000 and 6,000 per day in September. EU officials have called a summit for Sunday of several EU and Balkan leaders to focus on the migrant crisis. Tensions have been building this week after the Balkan route into Western Europe shifted when Hungary decided to close its border with Serbia to migrants on Oct. 17. Refugees still cross from Turkey to Greece to Macedonia to Serbia, but now go via Croatia and Slovenia instead of Hungary, which has erected high, razor-wire fences along its borders with Serbia and Croatia. In the future, refugees will register when they enter Serbia and will be able to cross into Croatia without any delays, which should speed up the process significantly, the ministers said.

Further west, thousands of migrants aiming to reach northern Europe walked out of refugee camps on the border between Slovenia and Austria on their own, frustrated after waiting long hours in overcrowded facilities. Eager to move on, thousands spread out Friday along railway tracks, highways and mountain roads. Confused about what roads to take, some migrants later turned back and returned to the refugee camps to wait for buses to other locations. Overwhelmed after more than 50,000 migrants crossed in just a week, tiny Slovenia said it has not ruled out erecting a fence of its own along parts of its 670-kilometer (400-mile) border with Croatia. Prime Minister Miro Cerar was quoted Friday as saying Slovenia will consider all options, if left on its own to cope with the influx of thousands of people. “Our sights are foremost on finding a European solution,” said Cerar. “But should we lose hope for this … all options are open, within what is acceptable.” The country of 2 million people already has deployed 650 army troops to help the police manage the flow and has asked the European Commission for 60 million euros ($68 million) in aid, police gear and personnel. Several EU nations have promised to send police officers to help Slovenia, which is so overloaded that a soccer match Saturday had to be cancelled because there were no officers available to guard it. Slovenia and Croatia have traded barbs since the start of the crisis, with Slovenia accusing Croatia of dropping migrants uncontrollably at its doorstep. Croatian police on Friday were seen escorting around 1,500 migrants close to an unmanned section of the country’s border with Slovenia before letting them cross on foot. The group arrived on a train and was led by police to a small bridge to cross into Slovenia, where they will be taken to a collection center. At the Serbian border, 5,000 people gathered around fires, under tents and wrapped in blankets as they waited all night to cross into Croatia. One elderly resident of the Croatian village of Kljuc Brdovecki said it was heart-breaking to see the refugees in those conditions. “They are truly miserable. When I watched them walking past one night, I got up to watch, I watched and cried,” Jela Karic told The Associated Press. “They walked this way, tired to the point of sleeping, in the middle of the night. When you watch them, all you can do is cry.” Serbian Interior Minister Nebojsa Stefanovic said his nation and Croatia will ask the EU to recognize the Serbian registration process — which includes finger and palm-printing and biometric passes — so refugees don’t have to undergo the same procedure over and over again.

“With the winter coming, it is important to agree on a speedy flow of these people,” Stefanovic said.

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Ali Zerdin in Ljubljana, Slovenia, Sabina Niksic at the Croatia-Slovenia border, Ivana Bzganovic in Berkasovo, Serbia, Jovana Gec in Belgrade, Serbia, and Petr David Josek and Balint Szlanko at the Slovenia-Austria border have contributed.

Montenegro: Police tear-gas huge protest demanding PM’s resignation (Morning Star, 26 October 2015)

MASSIVE demonstrations in Montenegrin capital Podgorica called for the resignation of Prime Minister Milo Djukanovic at the weekend. Police fired tear gas at the thousands-strong crowds on Saturday night while the opposition hurled firebombs and charged the parliament building, chanting: “Milo Thief.” Pro-EU opposition leader Nebojsa Medojevic took part in the demonstrations, shouting: “The dictator must fall” — Mr Djukanovic has held power for 25 years — but the main message of protesters was resistance to the prime minister’s plans to join the US-led Nato military alliance. An invitation is expected in December. Banners read: “No to Nato” and “For Military Neutrality of Montenegro.” A protesting electrician told reporters: “We are against Nato, but most of all we are hungry.” Andrija Mandic of the anti-Western New Serb Democracy party was arrested after apparently taking part in an assault on police lines involving petrol bombs and rocks.

Huge War Crimes Case Backlog Overwhelms Bosnia (BIRN, by Marija Tausan, 23 October 2015)

Bosnia and Herzegovina will fail to resolve the most sensitive war crimes cases by its December 2015 deadline and may not tackle the thousands of remaining cases by the final deadline of 2023.

Since Bosnia adopted its State Strategy for War Crimes in December 2008, 30 per cent of cases have been resolved. But it has become clear that the deadline of December 2015 for resolving the most sensitive cases, which was set by the strategy, is not likely to be met. A total of 750 people have been charged and proceedings against more than 2,110 others have been suspended in the seven years since the strategy was adopted. But investigations into alleged war crimes by at least 7,000 more people remain to be resolved by December 2023. Along with issues such as a relatively small number of prosecutors – 40 in the state-level prosecution – the complexity of the investigations, and the fact that some of the suspects have fled to neighbouring countries and some witnesses have passed away, Bosnia is also facing the issue of a lack of political support to prosecute high-level perpetrators and an apparent lack of will among prosecutors to indict.

During a recent visit to Bosnia and Herzegovina, the chief prosecutor at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, Serge Brammertz, told BIRN that the country’s judiciary appears to have insufficient dedication to prosecute war crimes cases in accordance with the national war crimes strategy. “I have to say with all due respect to my prosecutor colleagues that I was not always convinced all of them had the commitment to move war crime cases forward,” he said.

Speeding up the process

If all the remaining cases are to be resolved within eight years, the process clearly needs to be speeded up. It is envisaged in the strategy that the most complex cases should be processed by the state prosecution and the less complex cases by cantonal and district prosecutions.

The supervisory body for monitoring the implementation of the strategy has also emphasised that the priority of the state prosecution is to process the most complex cases, and that it is necessary to boost the process of transferring less complex ones to entity-level judiciaries. But the state prosecution has meanwhile been accused of spending its limited resources on cases that should be transferred. The Bosnian Justice Ministry told BIRN that despite all the prosecution’s staff and resources, it has not achieved satisfactory results. The ministry said that the prosecution is wasting time on cases that, at a later stage, are transferred to the entities’ judiciaries. In addition, in many cases complex investigations were split into several smaller cases. “This practice consumes the human and material resources of the state prosecution on prosecuting cases which, by their nature, should be referred to the entities’ judiciary in the investigation phase, but also the resources of the state court which conducts separate procedures for one event, instead of speeding up the process,” the ministry said. The state prosecution announced two weeks ago that it has charged 509 people with war crimes over the past ten years, 235 of whom were indicted in the last two-and-a-half years. Hague Tribunal prosecutor Brammertz believes that this is a significant achievement but that the numbers didn’t tell the whole story. “Figures are only one part of the equation, and it does not say anything about the quality, seriousness, gravity and criteria used in the selection of those cases,” Brammertz said. “There are different problems in the transfer of cases… I have heard from entity prosecutors that some cases transferred to them were only partial cases and minor ones… also, there are many important and big cases that are in the media every time an anniversary comes round, so those cases need to receive the highest priority because they provoke tension and cast a negative light on the prosecution,” he added.

He said that it was clear that the deadlines envisaged by the state strategy will not be met and that it is now necessary to prioritise the complex cases.

Choosing the easy cases

A disciplinary procedure was recently launched against a former prosecutor from the state prosecution, Munib Halilovic, for not processing one war crimes case. Speaking in his own defence, Halilovic admitted that he did not work on the case, but only because it was classified as a less complex case under the Bosnian war crimes processing strategy, which obliges prosecutors to prioritize complex and sensitive cases. Halilovic suggested that the disciplinary prosecutor file charges against prosecutors who intentionally pick easier cases to fill the annual quotas. “A large number of prosecutors in the state prosecution are doing just that. There are prosecutors there who never raised the indictments in a case which belongs to the most complex categories,” Halilovic told the disciplinary committee of the High Judicial and Prosecutorial Council of Bosnia and Herzegovina. “That is a job for the disciplinary prosecutor, to ask himself why some are allowed to choose the easiest cases,” he said. The Justice Ministry said that a number of steps that should be taken so that the most complex and highest priority cases can be processed more quickly. “It is necessary to review the criteria for the classification of complex and less complex cases, eliminate the conduction of parallel investigations at the state and entity levels, as well as to comprehensively resolve the question of which instance deals with which cases,” said ministry spokesperson Marina Bakic. But the ministry believes that all war crimes cases can be resolved by the end of 2023 with the financial help of the European Union, which will ensure the hiring of additional staff for the judiciary. “The fulfilment of this objective from the strategy should be expected due to assistance provided by the EU through the extraordinary IPA [Instrument for Pre-Accession] budget support for war crimes case processing project, the aim of which is to reduce the number of war crimes cases in the prosecutions by 50 per cent in a period of five years. Results in line with the working plan are already showing,” said Bakic.