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SARAJEVO, September 27 (FENA) - The OSCE Mission to Bosnia and Herzegovina has urged the Council of Ministers of BiH to adopt, without further delay, the revised State War Crimes Strategy for which a lot of time has been spent and which specifies the deadline according to which 2023 should be the year to finalize all the war crimes cases before the courts in BiH.
The BiH Council of Ministers was to consider this issue at a session in July this year, but during the session this item was removed from the agenda and it is yet to be included in some of the future sessions, and the OSCE Mission recalls that the great effort has been invested in the development of the revised strategy and all this should not be in vain.
At today's press conference in Sarajevo, the OSCE Mission presented a report on the review of the State Strategy and the Draft Revised Strategy. The report consolidates the information on the progress achieved by the BiH judiciary since the adoption of the original State Strategy in 2008.
Head of the OSCE Mission to BiH, Bruce Berton, explained that the report was made in response to increased public interest in the past period for the implementation of the Strategy, and it was concluded that it was largely successful, which led to positive results in the prosecution of war crimes cases.
“By the end of 2017, judicial institutions in BiH prosecuted 473 war crimes cases, including most of the cases from the "Category A", as characterized by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. Therefore, the accusations coming from the public arena that the judicial institutions have hid or ignored these cases, are absolutely unfounded,” said Berton.
He assessed that in recent years the BiH judiciary has made great progress in completing these and other war crimes cases, and these achievements can be largely attributed to substantial material assistance from the European Union and the international community, including the OSCE Mission.
“In the past few years, the courts in the entities and the Brčko District of BiH have shown that they are fully capable of working on less complex war crimes cases in a just and efficient manner, and with full respect for the rights of the victims,” Berton said.
Nevertheless, there were challenges, such as the fact that the Prosecutor’s Office and the Court of BiH failed to process all the most complex cases concluding with the end of 2015, as it was foreseen in the original Strategy, but Berton believes that the proposed Revised Strategy will contribute to the final achievement of justice for war crimes victims in BiH.
But apart from the fact that, in order to achieve justice and end impunity for these grave war crimes, further efforts are needed by the entire judicial sector and Berton emphasized that political will and support are of pivotal importance.
The Italian Ambassador to BiH Nicola Minasi, as a representative of the presiding country of the OSCE, noted that the rule of law is of key importance and therefore he supports the efforts of judicial institutions in BiH to conduct investigations and prosecute the most serious war crime cases.
“Achieving justice for the victims of such crimes requires a full assertion of facts and a clear picture regarding the crimes committed during the war in BiH. Effective prosecution of war crimes cases will create a strong basis for opening a new chapter for the future of the country," Minasi said.
The competent authorities in BiH receive the reports of committed crimes against humanity, war crimes and crimes of genocide on a daily basis, which makes it impossible to say the exact number of suspects for such crimes to date, but it is estimated that there are around 5,300 of them.
The new strategy introduces a revised criteria for assessing the complexity of a case, introduces an improved process of harmonization of case law, increases oversight and control by the Supervisory Board over the implementation of the strategy, and introduces changes that will improve protection measures for those seeking compensation from the perpetrators.
(FENA) S. R.
