War Crimes Prosecutors' Office, MICT sign MoU

BELGRADE - Serbia's War Crimes Prosecutor's Office and the Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals (MICT), which is the successor to the ad hoc Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) based in The Hague, signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in Belgrade on Monday.

Serbian War Crimes Prosecutor Vladimir Vukcevic and MICT prosecutor Hassan Jallow, who signed the agreement, said that the document had created the conditions for better cooperation between the Serbian prosecutor's office and the MICT, especially when it came to exchange of information.

"The general opinion here is that the cessation of the Hague tribunal's work means the end of work on the problems of perpetrators of war crimes, which is not true. Right now, the job is moving over to be handled by the judiciary in the region and the contribution of the residual mechanism of the tribunal which is the successor to The Hague prosecution is therefore invaluable," Vukcevic told reporters.

He said that the Serbian prosecutor's office now had a better and easier access to the database of the tribunal, its documents, physical evidence and witnesses.

Answering journalists' questions, Vukcevic said that the Serbian prosecutor's office was not taking over the obligation to raise indictments for The Hague tribunal, but was only required to consider the evidence gathered by the tribunal.

If it appears from the evidence that someone has committed a crime, the Serbian prosecutor's office will act on it, Vukcevic said, pointing out that the Serbian prosecutor's office treated the existing indictments as criminal charges.

Journalists wanted to know whether the signed agreement provided...