Prosecutions Discontinued in 250 ‘Category A’ War Crime Investigations

The Prosecution wrote that, between 2004 and 2022, it registered a total of 814 cases referred by the Prosecution of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, ICTY.

The State Prosecution said a decision had been made to discontinue investigations in more than 250 cases in category "A". This is how the ICTY labelled cases in which it suspected that the persons had committed grave violations of international humanitarian law.

The president of the Association of Victims and Witnesses of Genocide, Murat Tahirovic, told BIRN BiH, that this was the first time the State Prosecution had come up with concrete data about the "A" list.

"This confirms what we said before, that investigations against more than 300 people had eventually been discontinued and that has unfortunately proved true. Those are lost cases, and it would be good to know the names … so we can see who those people are," he said.

Murat Tahirovic. Photo: BIRN.

In 1996, the Hague Prosecution launched a programme, "Rules of the Road", which, among other things, obliged local prosecutors to submit case files to the Hague for an independent review of all local war crimes cases.

As written on the ICTY website, applying international standards, the Prosecution reviewed more than 1,400 case files referring to nearly 5,000 suspects and gave their opinion on whether sufficient evidence had been collected for further action in them.

A positive opinion was given for the criminal prosecution of 848 people. In its announcement the Prosecution explained that, through a review of its own registry and exchange of data with the Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals, MICT, the successor of the ICTY, as well as checks with the entity and Brcko...