Bosnia Charges 50% Fewer War Crime Suspects in 2019

"There are still many mass crimes, particularly in the eastern Bosnia area, whose perpetrators have not been charged as yet, although solid documentation about these crimes exists," said Vidovic.

She said that the state prosecution should focus its resources on these more serious cases rather than on "less extensive crimes and less significant cases in terms of perpetrators' rank".

Over the course of 2019, the Bosnian state court has handed down 24 second-instance verdicts, sentencing 33 people to 318 years in prison for war crimes. Interpol has issued 'red notices' for the arrest of three people with second-instance convictions. Meanwhile 12 people have been acquitted in second-instance verdicts in ten different cases.

Representatives of associations of war victims and wartime detainees said they were dissatisfied with the work of the state prosecution in 2019.

Bakira Hasecic, president of the Women - Victims of War association, said that survivors see the number of indictments filed and confirmed in 2019 as inadequate, particularly when it comes to wartime rape and sexual abuse cases, as well as other cases in which witnesses personally saw murders.

Karlo Maric, president of the Croatian Association of Detainees of the Homeland War in Bosnia and Herzegovina, argued that dividing up one case into several indictments delays proceedings.

"As time passes by, more and more people lose hope that justice will be achieved. Biology takes its toll, people die without being brought to court," Maric said.

The majority of indictments issued in 2019 cover one suspect only. In two cases, seven and eight people have been charged.

The country's revised War Crimes Processing Strategy, which was aimed at clearing the huge backlog of...