International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia

This year was no different.

The Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina has turned down an appeal from Darko Mrdja, a former member of a police intervention squad at the Public Security Station in the city of Prijedor, against the verdict convicting him of crimes against humanity.

MEPs in the European Parliament adopted two separate reports on Thursday evening urging Serbia and Kosovo to be more efficient in investigating the remaining missing persons cases from the 1998-99 Kosovo war.

The Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals in The Hague on Wednesday turned down a request for release on probation from Stanislav Galic, a wartime general and commander of the Bosnian Serb Army's Sarajevo-Romanija Corps, who is serving a life sentence for crimes against humanity in a German prison.

Two convicted war criminals, former Yugoslav deputy prime minister Nikola Sainovic and Yugoslav Army general Vladimir Lazarevic, appeared on Serbia's public broadcaster Radio-Television Serbia on Tuesday evening and denied that they committed the crimes of which they were convicted.

Biljana Plavsic is being treated for COVID-19 at Dragisa Misovic Hospital in Belgrade and her condition is serious, a family member told SRNA, the official news agency in Bosnia's Serb-dominated Republika Srpska entity on Thursday.

The Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals in The Hague on Thursday denied a release request from former Bosnian Serb detention camp guard Goran Jelisic, who is serving a 40-year sentence for crimes against humanity and violations of the laws or customs of war.

Trendafilova urged European nations to consider "comprehensive cooperation agreements" so witnesses and their families can be relocated to Western Europe.

"Without these agreements, it will be very difficult if not impossible in some cases to ensure that testimony can be given freely and without any fear," she said.

Research published on Thursday by two Bosnian NGOs documents over 600 sites where people were detained during the Bosnian war - more than have been previously counted.

High Representative Valentin Inzko, the international overseer of Bosnia and Herzegovina's peace agreement, has sent a letter demanded that Republika Srpska National Assembly, the parliament in the Serb-dominated entity, annuls honours that it awarded last October to people convicted of war crimes within "a deadline of three months, by the end of April 2021".