News in English     | 17.07.2019. 10:22 |

Berton: BiH Prosecutor's Office is very slow at processing war crimes cases

FENA Internet

SARAJEVO, July 17 (FENA) - If it continues to solve cases at this time rate, the Prosecutor's Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina will need some ten years to end all war crimes cases that it currently has in the proceedings, said Ambassador Bruce G. Berton, Head of the OSCE Mission for the daily newspaper ‘Oslobođenje’.

Berton recalled that the OSCE Mission to BiH, with the support of the European Union, presented a thematic report "Management of War Crimes Cases in the Prosecutor's Office of BiH" in June this year.

The report contains an analysis of the results achieved by the BiH Prosecutor's Office in processing war crimes cases and identifies the remaining challenges that lie in the way of effective prosecution of these cases.

“The report also contains a number of recommendations that, if implemented, would lead to the effective overcoming of these challenges. Recommendations for the Prosecutor's Office of BiH and other competent institutions can be classified into the three most important categories.

First, the rate of convictions in war crimes cases at the Court of BiH has been declining at an alarming rate, raising concerns about the quality of investigations and indictments raised by the BiH Prosecutor's Office.

Second, the report states that the BiH Prosecutor's Office does not direct its time and resources solely to investigating and prosecuting the most complex war crimes cases.

This is in contradiction with the revised Strategy, and it is crucial to achieving overall efforts aimed at sanctioning those responsible for crimes in accordance with the State War Crimes Strategy.

This practice is a waste of valuable resources. Finally, the report shows that the BiH Prosecutor's Office processes war crimes cases at a very slow pace, despite the resources at its disposal. If it continues to handle cases at this speed, the BiH Prosecutor's Office will need nearly 10 years to complete all the war crimes cases that are currently in the proceedings,” warned Berton.

He underlines that the Mission believes that these problems can and must be effectively resolved.

“Thanks to the assistance provided to the BiH Prosecutor's Office by bilateral donors and international organizations, both today and in the past, the Prosecutor's Office of BiH has the necessary resources and capacities.

The mission is aware that the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Courts currently provides additional targeted support to the Prosecution, which can only strengthen the Prosecution's capacities to process war crimes cases more efficiently.

However, in order to achieve this, it would be necessary for the Prosecution of Bosnia and Herzegovina to consider the recommendations that it has received,” underlined Berton.

(FENA) S. R.

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