Tag: Bosnia and Herzegovina

The journalists had an opportunity to speak with ICTY President Theodor Meron and Prosecutor Serge Brammertz. In addition to meetings with senior officials they attended the trials of Ratko Mladic and Radovan Karadzic. 

The presentations that followed focused on the role of the prosecutor and the defence in the adversarial legal system, the history and practice of investigations, witness protection issues, detention, and the ICTY’s cooperation with the regional media.

Speakers included Bob Reid, chief of operations for the Office of the Prosecution, Peter Robinson, Karadzic’s legal advisor, Peter McCloskey, ICTY prosecutor, Magda Spalinska, spokesperson for Registry and Chambers, Fraser Gilmour, deputy commanding officer of the ICTY detention unit, and Helena Vranov Schoorl, support officer from the victims and witnesses section.

The documentary will deal with the worldwide challenges and different practices involved in the process of accounting for missing persons. It will also highlight the role of the ICMP in the identification process in BiH.

The film will feature interviews with some of the most prominent practitioners in the field, including forensic experts and rights campaigners.

Set to appear are Andreas Wigger of the International Committee of the Red Cross, Queen Noor of Jordan, Kathryne Bomberger of the ICMP, Ronald K. Noble of Interpol, Radwan Ziadeh of the Damascus Centre for Human Rights Studies, Jose Antonio Lorente of the Department of Forensic Medicine of the University of Granada, Olgica Bozanic of the Regional Coordination of the Family Association of Republic of Serbia, and Sister Consuelo Morales of Citizens in Support of Human Rights from Mexico.

The film’s production is being supported by the Civil Rights Defenders and the OSCE Mission to BiH. Its release is expected at the end of the year.

The aim of these meetings was to gauge the level of cooperation between members of the Cantonal and District courts and prosecutor’s offices, interior ministries and local media. 

War crime trials reporters raised a number of issues about their cooperation with judicial bodies. They emphasised the lack of spokespersons, press conferences, anonymised court schedules and documents.

Although the High Judicial and Prosecutorial Council in Bosnia and Herzegovina has adopted a decision which should put an end to anonymisation, this practice still represents an obstacle to a more open judicial system.

An issue raised by the members of judiciary was the lack of knowledge among journalists about court procedures which often results in the revelation of the identities of protected witnesses and the misinterpretation of official statements.

The participants concluded that more effort should be invested in developing better cooperation with the authorities and improving communication in order to provide the public with timely and objective information.

By the end of this year, BIRN BiH’s advocacy network, the Association of Court Reporters, will hold three more meetings in Doboj, Brcko and Sarajevo.

It was organised by the International Commission on Missing Persons with the aim of assessing the roles of state, international institutions and civil society in the process of identifying missing persons, building local capacities, and ensuring the rule of law.

Suceska-Vekic spoke about the lessons learned from wartime, emphasising that the experience in the region of accounting for missing persons from the war can be applied in other countries and in other situations such as human trafficking, natural disasters and terrorist attacks.

“Currently there are thousands of people missing all over the world and we as members of civil society should do everything in our power to promote the experience we gained in other countries that are affected by this phenomena,” said Suceska-Vekic.

Over 70 per cent of those who went missing during the war have been accounted for. It is an unprecedented tally and was achieved largely thanks to a rule-of-law-based approach which saw prosecutors and forensic investigators taking the lead in excavating and documenting crimes for criminal trial purposes, said Suceska-Vekic.

The round-table brought together the representatives from the Bosnia and Herzegovina’s human rights and refugees ministry and prosecutor’s office, the Commission on Missing Persons and Humanitarian Law Centre from Serbia, the Croatian family affairs, war veterans and intergenerational solidarity ministry, the Associated Press and BIRN BiH.

Speaking about witness protection measures in cases of rape and sexual abuse, she said that victims of such crimes should be able to receive not only physical protection but psychological guidance as well.

On the question whether local courts are sufficiently equipped to process war crimes and protect witnesses, Mackic said the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina is an exception but many other courts at the local level, such as those in Banja Luka and Gorazde, work with limited resources, sometime with only one judge and/or prosecutor.

Noting that the war-crimes prosecution process is lengthy, Mackic said that precisely because of that reason, the work of local courts was of great importance if Bosnia is to meet the 2023 deadline.

The film features a group of six young students from Mulberry School for Girls in London who embarked on a journey to explore the turbulent history of BiH, the site of Europe’s worst genocide since the Second World War.
 
“I needed to prepare for victims of rape, victims of genocide, people who have lost their families, and I need to be able to deal with that emotionally,” stated Fatima, one of the girl students.
 
Their journey took them to Sarajevo and Srebrenica where they had an opportunity to see the sites of mass atrocities and speak to about what justice really means to those who want it most.
 
“When we talk about justice for victims or justice for survivors they are talking about what I call reckoning”, said Ed Vulliamy, a British-based reporter during the war in Bosnia, recalling an interview with the girls.
 
In The Hague they attended the trial to Radovan Karadzic, charged for genocide, and spoke to his defence counsel as well as the chief prosecutor Serge Brammertz, and the former BIRN BiH director and ICTY spokesperson Nerma Jelacic.
 
Justice in Action won Best International Documentary at the People’s Film Festival in New York.
 
Fiona Lloyd-Davies first went to BiH at the height of the war in July 1992. She continued to work there during and after the war for the BBC, Channel 4 and Al Jazeera English.

The book, entitled War Crime Trials in BiH, is about the issues faced by people living in a post-conflict society.

“People in post-conflict societies are at a crossroads wondering how to overcome a past filled with war victims, torture, and criminals,” Simic writes in the book.

The author deals with reconciliation and forgiveness from different religious, political and psychological aspects, stating that hundreds if not thousands of war criminals are still walking freely among their victims who at the same time are trying to build normal lives.

Simic defines transitional justice concepts and gives a historical background to the war crimes committed in the 1990s. He also reflects on the work done so far by the institutions dealing with war crimes in the country, and concludes by identifying the issues that are standing in the way of peaceful coexistence.

The book is available in Bosnian via: www.knjiga.ba/sudenja-za-ratne-zlocine-u-bosni-i-hercegovini-k8839.html

The author’s website address is: www.goransimic.ba.

BIRN BiH launched the petition three weeks ago as a part of its ‘Stop Censorship Over War Crimes’ Campaign. Over the course of six days, people in Sarajevo had the chance to better inform themselves about the issue of the anonymisation of court documents.

“As of last year, we have verdicts for war crimes that literally state ‘F.K. together with S.F. committed a crime in town B., Municipality Z.’, which means that you as a citizen have no idea where this crime happened or who committed it,” said Selma Ucanbarlic, BIRN’s court monitor and Justice Report journalist.

Apart from initials replacing names in verdicts and indictments, the court of BiH releases only 10 minutes of audio-video material from trials, preventing the public from hearing victims’ full testimonies.

“How else as ordinary citizens living here can we know whether someone who killed, robbed, and committed other atrocious crimes is walking among us?” said one Sarajevan after signing the petition.

BIRN’s petition is just one of the activities organised to help raise public awareness about censorship. In the coming weeks, the campaign will continue in other towns, after which the signatures will be submitted to the authorities.