Blagoje Simić

The UN's International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals in The Hague announced on Tuesday that the verdict on Jovica Stanisic and Franko Simatovic's appeal against their conviction for war crimes in Bosnia will be handed down on May 31.

Researcher Hikmet Karcic cites the Simic case in his report entitled 'Obeying Unlawful Orders: Continuity of Personnel Involved in Human Rights Violations and its Impact on Reforms in Bosnia and Herzegovina'.

Karcic notes in the report that several convicted war criminals who have served their sentences have since returned to public office in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The Bosnian State Investigation and Protection Agency on Tuesday arrested Ibro Merkez, Esef Huric and Ahmed Sejdic in Sarajevo and Gorazde on suspicion that as wartime members of the Bosnian police and military, they took part in crimes against Serb civilians.

The Prosecution of Bosnia and Herzegovina has filed an indictment against Almaz Nezirovic for war crimes in the northern Derventa and Bosanski Brod municipalities.

Twenty-two years after Serb fighters seized 20 passengers from a train in Bosnia and killed them, the Serbian war crimes prosecution said that indictments will be issued in the coming days.

The Bosnian state prosecution raised an indictment against five former Bosnian Army soldiers for abusing over 100 Croat civilians who were unlawfully detained in the Mostar municipality in 1993.

The prosecution filed an indictment charging Resad Mujkic, a former fighter with Bosnian Croat forces, with crimes against civilians including the abuse and torture of prisoners in Odzak in 1992.

At the trial of female Bosnian Croat ex-fighter Indira Kameric, a prosecution witness said that she was raped for 20 days in a row while detained at a football stadium in Bosanski Brod in 1992.

Novak Djukic, who was convicted of ordering Bosnian Serb artillery to shell the town of Tuzla in 1995, leaving 71 people dead, had his prison sentence reduced from 25 to 20 years.

In its closing arguments at the trial for crimes committed in Bosanski Brod, the prosecution said Zemir Kovacevic should be found guilty of killing, looting and the illegally arrest of Bosnian Serb civilians in 1992.