Sarajevo, July 4, 2023 – The High Judicial and Prosecutorial Council of Bosnia and Herzegovina (HJPC BiH) organized today a conference of chief prosecutors of Bosnia and Herzegovina in Sarajevo, during which comprehensive aspects of processing war crimes cases, as well as the state and perspectives of implementation of the Revised National War Crimes Strategy were discussed.

The conference was opened by the President of the HJPC BiH, Halil Lagumdžija, emphasizing its importance in terms of professional harmonization on further measures for working on war crimes cases. “Prosecutors in BiH are obliged to focus their capacities on prosecuting complex and priority war crimes cases. Chief prosecutors have an obligation to ensure the highest standards of efficiency and quality,” Lagumdžija emphasized.

The focus of the conference was to identify key obstacles and needs of prosecutorial system in war crimes processing, as well as to propose necessary steps that will ensure a comprehensive approach and uniform functioning of the prosecutorial system in BiH. As a priority in prosecuting war crimes cases, the need for more intensive work on regional cases, improving the quality of indictments and more effective implementation of internal supervision mechanism by chief prosecutor was emphasized. Additionally, the necessity of improving cooperation between prosecutor’s offices and police agencies was discussed, with special emphasis on defining prerequisites for ensuring support from the State Investigation and Protection Agency. Chief prosecutors also agreed that it is necessary to improve the dynamics of court proceedings in such a way that the main trial is conducted within seven days, in accordance with the minimum measure and efficiency standards stipulated by the HJPC BiH’s sub-legal framework.

“The main burden (of processing war crimes cases) lies on the prosecutorial service of BiH, which has confirmed its capacity to deliver results over the past years. But further efforts are required to bring to justice as many remaining perpetrators as possible to be able to declare that the criminal phase of transitional justice in Bosnia and Herzegovina is completed”,” said Stefano Ellero, Head of Cooperation of EU Delegation to BiH. He emphasized that the EU shall remain engaged to assist Bosnia and Herzegovina to provide justice to the victims of war crimes. “This is our moral obligation and it has no time limit”, he concluded.

OSCE Mission to BiH tracks and reports on war crime case processing and Rebecca Agule, Head of the Rule of Law Section in the OSCE Mission to BiH noted that “with almost 400 war crime cases with known suspects remaining to be processed, we are, as stated in the Mission’s most recent report on war crimes processing, in a race against time.“

"Twenty years after the ICTY Completion Strategy was adopted, meaningful domestic war crimes justice has been achieved in BiH," said Kevin Hughes, representative of the Office of Chief prosecutor of IRMCT. "There remains much important work to do, and my Office will continue to work closely with prosecutors in BiH to achieve more justice for more victims.", and he added.

The conference was organized with the financial support from the European Union within the Project “Enhancing War Crime Case Processing in BiH” and in coordination with the OSCE Mission to BiH and the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals.

The project founded by European Union